r 

LIBRARY 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 

REPRESENTATIVE 
MODERN    PREACHERS 


.^^^ 


REPRESENTATIVE 
MODERN     PREACHERS 


BY 


LEWIS   O.    BRASTOW,    D.D. 

o 

PROFESSOR  OF  PRACTICAL  THEOLOGY    IN    YALE    UNIVERSITY 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1904 

uUl  rights  reserved 


\0  V    '^fol  u  / 


B7 


Copyright,  1904, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY, 


Set  up,  electrotyped,  and  published  February,  1904. 


Nortoootr  '^re»9 

J.  S.  Cufihing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


To  the  Graduates  of  Yale  Divinity  School^ 
who  have  participated  with  me  in  the  study  of  the 
Great  Preachers  of  the  Christian  Churchy  and  with 
whom  I  have  passed  pleasant  class-room  hours  that 
will  never  be  forgotten^ 

I  Dedicate  this   Volume, 


PREFACE 

The  chapters  of  this  volume  were  originally  lectures 
to  divinity  students.  I  have  ventured  to  present  them 
in  revised  and  expanded  form  to  the  general  public, 
because  I  think  that  the  preachers  of  whose  personali- 
ties and  products  I  have  here  attempted  a  critical  esti- 
mate have,  by  their  skill  and  force  in  presenting  the 
truth,  won  the  right  to  a  special  hearing.  I  have  been 
a  careful  student  of  them  for  many  years,  and  confess 
a  special  personal  interest  in  most  of  them.  Some  of 
them  are  well  known.  A  good  deal  has  been  said 
about  them  and  they  have  been  widely  read.  It  may 
seem,  therefore,  to  be  bringing  "  coals  to  Newcastle  "  to 
discuss  them  anew.  But  some  of  them  are  not  well 
known.  A  volume  of  Schleiermacher's  selected  and 
translated  sermons  was  presented  a  few  years  ago  to 
the  American  public.  But  I  venture  the  surmise  that 
but  few,  even  among  preachers,  know  this  great  repre- 
sentative of  the  German  pulpit,  either  as  preacher  or 
as  theologian.  Newman  and  Mozley  have  still  a  lim- 
ited circle  of  readers  and  admirers,  but  it  might  well 
be  enlarged.  The  "up-to-date"  man  is  not  interested 
in  Guthrie  or  Spurgeon.  They  have  contributed  Uttle 
or  nothing  to  the  thought  of  the  church.  But  each 
according  to  his  type  was  a  great  preacher,  and  it 
would  be  a  mistake  to  minimize  their  significance  for 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

the  practical  life  of  the  church.  It  is  doubtless  some- 
thing of  a  venture  to  ask  fresh  attention  to  the  more 
widely  known  and  read  preachers  of  our  group,  who 
bear  most  distinctively  the  modern  mark.  But  I  have 
cherished  the  hope  that  by  directing  attention  to  the 
influences  that  wrought  upon  all  of  these  preachers, 
by  analyzing  their  characteristics  of  personality  and 
their  homiletic  methods  and  products,  by  indicating 
what  they  represent  as  preachers,  and  by  setting  them 
somewhat  in  comparison  or  contrast,  I  may  have  suc- 
ceeded in  a  measure  in  getting  them  into  fresh  light, 
and  may  have  made  some  additional  contribution,  how- 
ever slight,  to  the  knowledge  of  them.  Contemporary 
with  the  preachers  we  are  considering  there  were,  of 
course,  others  of  great  skill  and  effectiveness  who 
might  well  have  been  grouped  with  them.  But  per- 
sonal preference  is  a  factor  in  the  selection ;  the  plan 
of  discussion  would  not  admit  of  enlargement  of  the 
group,  and  it  may  at  least  be  claimed  that  none  of 
their  contemporaries  surpassed  them  in  their  own  lines. 
There  are  living  preachers  who  are  their  worthy  suc- 
cessors, but  the  author  does  not  wish  to  engage  in 
vivisection. 

The  preachers  before  us  differ  widely  from  each 
other  as  representatives  of  the  preaching  of  the  last 
century.  Each  in  his  own  way  represents  some  im- 
portant interest,  meets  some  real  want,  and  is  the 
product  of  some  movement  of  thought  or  life,  or  some 
combination  of  movements,  measurably  manifest  in 
the  last  century.  Some  of  them  are  theologically  and 
ecclesiastically  reactionary,  but  not  one  of  them  is  a 
complete  anachronism,  and  there  is  none  that  fails  to 


PREFACE  ix 

bring  an  important  message  for  his  age  and  for  ours 
as  well.  No  effort  has  been  made  to  differentiate  them 
formally  by  groups,  or  to  classify  them  according  to  the 
schools  they  may  be  supposed  to  represent.  But  they 
represent  different  tendencies  and  they  belong  to  differ- 
ent types.  Ecclesiastically  the  first  five  may  be  called 
Broad  churchmen,  the  two  following  High  churchmen, 
and  the  last  two  Low  churchmen,  using  these  terms 
comprehensively.  Theologically  the  first  group  repre- 
sent measurably  modern  catholicity  and  liberality,  the 
second  church  confessionalism,  and  the  third  an  ardent 
evangelicalism.  With  respect  to  points  of  view  or  pre- 
vailing tendencies  of  homiletic  thought  and  method, 
they  may  be  called  respectively  humanistic,  dogmatic, 
and  Biblical.  But  these  are  only  general  terms,  not 
exhaustive  of  either  group,  and  much  less  of  individual 
peculiarities  and  tendencies.  They  represent  the  di- 
versities and  varieties  that  characterize  the  modern 
pulpit,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  they  share  much  that 
is  common,  and  all  disclose  in  some  measure  the  influ- 
ences that  are  everywhere  at  work  in  modern  life. 

We  need  to  get  back  to  the  best.  The  great  preacher 
is  a  gift  from  God,  and  the  church  and  its  ministers 
need  incentive  from  their  princes.  If  I  may  but  suc- 
ceed in  securing  from  intelligent  laymen,  theological 
students,  and  preachers  new  interest  in  the  men  to 
whom  I  have  ventured  to  direct  their  attention,  my 
object  will  have  been  secured  and  I  shall  have  my 
reward. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 
FRIEDRICH  DANIEL  ERNST  SCHLEIERMACHER 

PAGE 
I.      SCHLEIERMACHER'S     SPIRITUAL    AND     INTELLECTUAL    DEVEL- 
OPMENT          I 

1.  The  early  period  of  Moravian  nurture    ....  3 

2.  The  student  period  of  philosophic  Illumination      .         .  8 

3.  The  period  of  social  and  literary  culture         .         .         .12 

4.  The  period  of  pedagogic,  ecclesiastical,  and  political 

influence 15 

II.      SCHLEIERMACHER'S  CONCEPTION  OF  RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY  l6 

1.  Religion  a  fact  of  spiritual  experience    ....  18 

2.  The  content  of  such  experience  the  basis  of  theology    .  20 

3.  Such  experience  discloses  itself  in  the  life  of  the  church, 

and  religion  allies  itself  with  morality         ...  21 

III.      SCHLEIERMACHER'S   PREACHING 22 

1.  The  conception  of  religion  and  theology  conditions  his 

conception  of  preaching 24 

2.  The  religion  of  spiritual  experience  as  related  to  the 

subject-matter  of  preaching 28 

3.  The  object  of  preaching  as  conceived  by  Schleiermacher  33 

4.  The  tone  of  his  preaching 36 

5.  Its  formal  aspects 39 

6.  The  type  of  preachers  with  which  he  may  be  classed     .  44 


CHAPTER   II 
FREDERICK  WILLIAM   ROBERTSON 

Influences  Determinative  of  his  Development      .        .      50 

1.  His  distinctive  English  qualities 50 

2.  The  influence  of  the  English  home  ....       54 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 


3.  His  relation  to  the  Anglican  church 

4.  The  influence  of  philosophical  Idealism 

5.  The  influence  of  modern  literature 

II.    Distinctive  Qualities  in  Robertson's  Preaching    . 

1.  Its  Biblical  quality 

(1)  Grasp  of  the  historic  sense    .... 

(2)  Apprehension  of  the  inner  suggestiveness  of  Bib 

lical  material  and  grasp  of  fundamental  Biblical 
principles 

(3)  Use  of  Biblical  material  in  advocacy  of  ethical 

and  spiritual  interests         .... 

(4)  The  textual  and  expository  form  and  method 

2.  The  intellectual  and  edifying  quality  of  his  preaching 

3.  His  preaching  as  illustrative  of  the  value  of  deep  and 

varied  religious  experience 

4.  The  value  of  a  refined  and  forceful  personality  in  the 

preacher    

5.  Rhetorical  quaUties  in  his  preaching 


CHAPTER   III 
HENRY  WARD  BEECHER 

The  Representative  American  Preacher  . 

1.  Beecher's  individualistic  quality;  his  freedom  from  con- 

ventionalism; the  assertion  of  the  rights  of  the 
homiletic  personality  .... 

2.  The  didactic  and  persuasive  quality 

(i)  Intellectual  and  spiritual  productiveness 

(2)  Thoroughness  and  grasp  of  what  is  fundamental 

(3)  Intellectual  scope 

(4)  Intellectual  catholicity  . 

3.  Transcendent  gifts  of  expression     . 

(i)  The  intellectual  quality  of  clarity 

(2)  The  ethical  quality  of  naturalness 

(3)  The  concrete,  illustrative  style 


CONTENTS  xiii 

CHAPTER   IV 
HORACE  BUSHNELL 

PAGE 

I.    Bushnell's  Homiletic  Genius 143 

His  philosophical  grasp,  his  theological  insight,  his  "exi- 
getical  divination,"  his  student  impulse,  his  realistic  en- 
terprise, all  made  tributary  to  the  interests  of  preaching  .     143 

IL    Bushnell's  Personality  as  related  to  his  Work  as  a 

Preacher 155 

1.  The  physical  personality 155 

2.  The  intellectual  adhesiveness  and  insight       .         .        .159 

3.  The  artistic  gifts 165 

4.  The  ethical  equipment 171 

5.  The  dominance  of  mystical  vision 176 

III.    Bushnell's   Theology   as   adapted    to    the   Work   of 

Preaching 184 

Its  unscientific  character;  its  concrete  and  non-technical 
form;  its  Christ ological  centre 185 

CHAPTER  V 

PHILLIPS  BROOKS 

I.    The  Christian  Humanist 195 

Influences  that  furthered  the  humanistic  development         .     196 

II.    The  Harmonious  Personality 206 

Its  progressive  disclosure.  The  physical,  mental,  ethical, 
spiritual,  and  artistic  equipment 208 

III.  The  Hope-bearing  Message 217 

What  is  involved  in  the  conception  of  his  message.  His 
message  as  related  to  scientific  theology.  His  attitude 
with  respect  to  the  theology  of  the  church.  The  theo- 
logical, anthropological,  Christological,  soteriological, 
ecclesiological,  and  eschatological  content  of  his  message     217 

IV,  The  Illustrative  Homiletic  Method        ....    236 

Analytic  skill.  Use  of  analogy  and  generalization.  Infer- 
ential processes.  Appeal  to  experience.  Qualities  of 
literary  style 239 


XIV  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VI 
JOHN  HENRY  NEWMAN 

PAGE 

I.    The  Anglican  Movement 252 

What  lies  behind  it,  and  its  relation  to  Newman's  career    .     253 

n.    Newman  the  Ecclesiastical  Dogmatist     ....    264 
Conditions  determinative  of  his  dogmatic  development        .     266 

ni.    Newman  the  Preacher 287 

The  intensity  of  his  religious  feeling.  His  emphasis  upon 
the  ethical  significance  of  faith.  His  insight  into  the 
human  soul.  The  apologetic  subject-matter  of  his 
preaching.  The  structural  freedom  of  his  method.  The 
force  and  grace  of  his  literary  style 288 

CHAPTER  VII 

JAMES  BOWLING  MOZLEY 

I.    The  Man  and  the  Theologian.      Sketch  of  his  Life 

and  Work 309 

II.    The  Apologetic  and  Ethical  Preacher    .        .        .        .321 

1.  The   non-dogmatic,  the   declarative,  the  non-partisan, 

and  fundamental  qualities  of  his  apologetic  method    .     321 

2.  The  searching  analysis  of  his  ethical  method.     His  pre- 

vailing view  of  the  world  and  of  life.     The  optimistic 
note  in  his  Christian  pessimism 331 

3.  The  artistic  aspects  of  his  preaching      .        .        .        ,     344 

CHAPTER   VIII 
THOMAS  GUTHRIE 
I.    Character  and  Career 350 

II.    The  Popular  Evangelistic  Preacher         ....    363 

1.  The  physical  personality 363 

2.  Influence  of  pastoral  and  philanthropic  work  upon  his 

preaching 367 

3.  The  material  and  structural  elements  in  his  preaching    .     371 

4.  His  dramatic  power 377 


CONTENTS  XV 

CHAPTER   IX 
CHARLES   HADDON  SPURGEON 

PAGE 

I.    The  Building  of  the  Puritan  Pastoral  Evangelist      .  383 

A  sketch  of  his  life  and  of  the  processes  of  his  development  383 

II.    The  Preaching  of  the  Puritan  Pastoral  Evangelist    .  395 

1.  The  power  of  spontaneity  and  naturalness      .         .         .  396 

2.  His    consciousness    of  vocation    as    related   to   pulpit 

effectiveness 401 

3.  The  positiveness  of  his  message  and  its  influence  over 

men 403 

4.  The  value  of  his  working  knowledge  of  the  Bible  .         .  407 

5.  The  effectiveness  of  his  a</ ^owm<f;w  method  .         .411 

6.  His  power  of  pathos 413 

Index 417 


(• 


t/.''iVL.-,^^TY 


OF 


CHAPTER   t-^Si^JFOR^ 

FRIEDRICH    DANIEL   ERNST 
SCHLEIERMACHER 


SCHLEIERMACHER'S   SPIRITUAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL 
DEVELOPMENT 

It  seems  almost  presumptuous  to  undertake,  within  the 
limits  permitted,  to  investigate  so  complex  a  personality 
as  that  of  Schleiermacher,  even  from  the  restricted  point 
of  view  of  the  preacher.  But  when  we  consider  that  he 
is  the  representative  and  the  organ  of  those  complex 
influences  that  have  so  powerfully  affected  the  religious 
Hfe  of  the  modern  world,  and  when  we  recall  his  vast 
significance  for  the  modern  evangelical  church,  the 
undertaking  may  be  sanctioned,  however  inadequate  its 
success.  And  because  of  the  representative  character  of 
his  preaching,  of  its  influence  upon  the  German  pulpit, 
and  of  its  own  intrinsic  excellencies,  perhaps  no  better 
selection  from  among  German  preachers,  for  our  study, 
could  have  been  made.  In  the  realm  of  rehgion  he  was 
the  representative  man  of  his  century,  a  man  of  most 
capacious  susceptibilities  and  of  most  comprehensive 
genius.  Perhaps  no  man  of  his  time  was  so  responsive 
to  those  intellectual,  aesthetic,  religious,  ethical,  eccle- 
siastical, and  political  influences  that  were  at  work  in 


2  REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

the  ferment  of  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  and  in 
the  first  part  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  which  are 
still  evolving  their  results  in  the  most  characteristic  ten- 
dencies and  movements  of  our  day.  He  can  hardly  be 
classified.  He  seems  not  so  much  an  individual,  Hmited 
personality  as  a  vast  and  varied  influence.  He  founded 
no  school,  but  has  influenced  all  schools.  It  was  this 
universality  and  versatility  that  made  him  an  object  of 
misapprehension.  He  was  himself  conscious  of  it,  and 
lamented  its  consequences.  He  was  contemporary  with 
most  of  the  great  men  of  Germany  who  have  made  them- 
selves felt  upon  the  modern  world.  In  philosophy, 
ScheUing  and  Leibnitz  preceded  him  but  by  a  few  years, 
and  Hegel  was  his  colleague  at  the  Berlin  University.  In 
literature,  there  were  Lessing,  Goethe,  Herder,  Schiller, 
Novalis,  Jean  Paul  Richter,  and  the  Schlegels,  with  the 
younger  of  whom  he  at  one  time  lived  in  closest  personal 
friendship.  He  was  himself  a  philosopher  of  whom 
Schelling,  in  commendation  of  his  "  Discourses  on  Reli- 
gion," in  substance  said  that  they  were  the  product  of  the 
profoundest  philosophical  investigation,  or  else  they  must 
have  been  written  under  bHnd  inspiration.  By  a  com- 
petent authority,  he  has  been  called  "  the  greatest  theo- 
logian of  the  Protestant  church  since  the  Reformation," 
and  at  his  death,  Neander  characterized  him  as  "the 
man  from  whom  will  be  dated  henceforth  a  new  era  in 
the  history  of  theology."  He  was  a  literary  humanist, 
gifted  with  rare  artistic  sense,  a  teacher  with  rare  gifts 
of  exposition  and  of  stimulation,  a  statesman  whose 
voice  was  heard  in  troublous  times  in  the  councils  of  the 
nation,  a  church  leader  of  catholic,  tolerant  spirit  and 
of  wide  practical  initiative,  and  he  has  been  correctly 


SPIRITUAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT     3 

designated  by  a  French  writer  as  the  "most  eminent 
Christian  preacher  in  Germany,"  in  his  day.  His 
industry  was  commensurate  with  his  ability.  From 
early  years  and  up  to  the  very  last,  he  was  an  earnest 
and  diligent  student,  rising  at  an  early  hour  in  the 
morning  and  sitting  late  into  the  night,  detesting  lazi- 
ness in  all  men,  and  especially  intolerant  of  it  in  him- 
self, as  one  of  the  worst  of  vices.  From  this  world  of 
thought  and  of  experience  he  won  the  most  multifarious 
resources,  perhaps,  of  any  man  of  his  time,  all  of  which 
he  assimilated  with  amazing  facility  and  made  tributary 
to  his  work. 

The  speculative  side  of  Schleiermacher's  development 
does  not  concern  us,  save  as  it  is  tributary  to  its  practical 
aspect.  It  is  with  him  as  a  preacher  that  we  have  to 
deal,  and  in  tracing  the  course  of  his  development, 
which  seems  necessary  to  our  purpose,  we  shall  have 
reference  to  its  bearings  on  his  work  as  a  preacher.  In 
his  career  there  are  four  distinctly  marked  periods,  in 
which  four  classes  of  influence  wrought  determinatively 
upon  him.  There  was  the  early  period  of  dominating 
religious  influence;  then  followed  the  period  of  his 
student  life,  in  which  philosophic  influences  shaped  his 
thinking;  then  came  the  literary  influences  of  a  still 
later  period ;  and  finally  the  influences  that  originated  in 
the  ecclesiastical  and  political  conditions  of  his  age  and 
nation. 

I.  Schleiermacher  was  nurtured  from  early  years,  in 
the  school  of  mystical  Moravian  piety.  He  was  him- 
self constitutionally  and  most  delicately  responsive  to 
religious  influences,  a  manVith  a  genius  for  religion, 
perhaps,    beyond    any    prominent    man    of    his    age. 


4  REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

"  Piety,"  he  says  in  his  discourses,^  "  was  the  mother's 
womb  in  whose  sacred  darkness  my  young  life  was 
nourished  and  was  prepared  for  a  world  still  sealed  for 
it.  In  it  my  spirit  breathed  ere  it  had  yet  found  its 
own  place  in  knowledge  and  experience.  It  helped  me 
as  I  began  to  sift  the  faith  of  my  fathers  and  to  cleanse 
thought  and  feeling  from  the  rubbish  of  antiquity." 
His  paternal  grandfather  was  a  man  of  religious  visions. 
His  father,  a  man  of  varied  intellectual  activities  and  of 
multifarious  knowledge,  at  one  time  a  sceptical  preacher 
of  the  accommodating  Kantian  school,  became  an  ardent 
dogmatic  devotee  of  the  evangelical  faith,  and  of  a  mys- 
tical piety  after  the  Moravian  type.  This  early  religious 
influence  the  son,  in  one  of  his  letters  in  later  life,  ac- 
knowledged: "The  first  element  that  developed  itself 
spontaneously  was  the  religious.  I  can  remember  its 
first  movements  in  me,  during  a  walk  with  my  father. 
He  never  allowed  me  to  lose  sight  of  it  again,  after  it 
had  developed  itself."  His  mother  was  his  only  earliest 
teacher,  a  woman  of  sound  judgment,  of  loving  heart, 
and  of  pedagogic  tact,  who  nourished  in  him  a  love  of 
knowledge,  inculcated  the  necessity  of  thoroughness  in 
his  intellectual  tasks,  corrected  his  youthful  conceit  of 
superiority,  while  she  stimulated  the  sentiment  of  grati- 
tude and  cherished  his  earliest  religious  emotion.  In 
this  atmosphere  of  devout  and  earnest  piety  he  spent 
the  first  fifteen  years  of  his  life,  and  was  then  sent  to 
the  Moravian  school  at  Niesky.  This  school,  with  its 
local  isolation,  its  attractive  natural  environment,  its 
simplicity  and  unworldliness,  and  its  devout  piety,  was 
chosen  by  the  son  himself,  no  less  than  by  his  parents, 

1  Schleiermacher's  "  Werke,"  Vol.  I,  Die  Reden,  p.  152. 


SPIRITUAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT     5 

as  a  defence  for  his  soul  against  the  possible  corruptions 
of  the  more  distinctively  scientific  schools.  In  the  two 
schools  of  Niesky  and  Barby  he  remained  for  four 
years,  or  until  he  was  nineteen  years  old ;  here  the  re- 
ligious influences  of  his  home  are  intensified,  and  here, 
although  his  intellectual  life  develops  somewhat  inde- 
pendently in  association  with  two  of  his  schoolfellows, 
his  religious  character  is  more  deeply  rooted,  more 
richly  nourished,  more  fully  developed,  and  here  it  is 
permanently  fixed.  A  vast  blessing  to  the  world  were 
those  schools  of  Moravian  piety.  Schleiermacher's  let- 
ters to  his  parents  during  this  school  period  indicate  the 
strength  of  this  religious  influence  upon  his  imagination 
and  upon  his  religious  feeling  and  affection ;  and  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  here  there  was  in  constant  process  of 
development  that  rare  character  which  was  so  notable 
for  its  intensity  and  tenderness  of  affection.  All  of  his 
correspondence,  even  to  the  latest  years  of  his  life  in 
Berlin,  is  a  continuous  outflowing  of  a  great  loving 
heart.  If  in  early  years  these  affectionate  utterances 
bear  the  mark  of  a  diction  common  among  the  Breth- 
ren, and  which  was  somewhat  stereotyped  and  over- 
effusive,  it  is  not  the  less  genuine  and  real.  If,  in  later 
life,  these  utterances  are  more  simple  and  measured  and 
humanistic,  less  distinctively  religious  in  the  formal 
sense,  and  are  more  specifically  the  utterances  of  human 
friendship  and  devotion,  they  indicate,  nevertheless,  their 
nurturing  source  in  the  early  culture  of  the  religious  af- 
fections. The  "moved  heart,"  an  expression  that  occurs 
frequently  in  his  letters  as  in  his  sermons,  is  everywhere 
regulative  for  all  forms  of  his  activity.  It  is  the  emo- 
tional and  affectional  qualities  that  he  values  supremely. 


6  REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

not  only  for  himself,  but  in  others.  This  is  the  basis  for 
his  estimate  of  friends.  **  For  his  intellect  alone,"  he 
writes,  "  I  love  no  man.  Schiller  and  Goethe  are  two 
mighty  intellects,  —  but  I  shall  never  be  tempted  to 
love  them."  It  is  this  that  accounts  for  his  love  of 
friendly  association  with  women.  "It  is  through  the 
knowledge  of  the  feminine  heart  and  mind,"  he  says, 
"  that  I  have  learned  to  know  what  real  human  worth 
is."  His  letters  illustrate  most  impressively  the  possi- 
bilities of  religion  for  the  culture  of  the  human  heart, 
and  are  of  great  value  to  any  one  who  will  know  the 
primal  inspirations  of  this  great  character.  All  through 
his  life,  subsequent  to  his  departure  from  the  Moravian 
school,  he  was  indirectly  connected  with  the  Brethren 
through  his  sister,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Com- 
munity, and  we  are  not  surprised  that  he  should  freely 
acknowledge  their  influence.  Fifteen  years  after  his 
separation  from  them,  in  1802,  during  the  period  of  his 
most  intense  intellectual  activity  as  well  as  of  free  asso- 
ciation with  men  of  culture  who  did  not  share  his  spirit, 
he  thus  refers  to  this  influence  in  a  letter  recalling  a  visit 
to  his  sister  :^  "  There  is  no  other  place  which  could  call 
forth  such  lively  reminiscences  of  the  entire  onward 
movement  of  my  mind,  from  its  first  awakening  to  a 
higher  life,  up  to  the  point  which  I  have  at  present 
attained.  Here  it  was  that,  for  the  first  time,  I  awoke 
to  the  consciousness  of  a  higher  world.  .  .  .  Here  it 
was  that  that  mystic  tendency  developed  itself  which 
has  been  of  so  much  importance  to  me,  and  has  sup- 
ported me  and  carried  me  through  all  the  storms  of 

1  "  Life   and    Letters   of    Schleiermacher,"    translated    by   Frederica 
Rowan,  Vol.  I,  p.  283. 


SPIRITUAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT      7 

scepticism.  Then  it  was  germinating,  now  it  has 
attained  its  full  development ;  and  I  may  say  that,  after 
all  I  have  passed  through,  I  have  become  a  Herrnhuter 
again,  only  of  a  higher  order."  He  always  cherished 
and  revered  the  simple,  ardent  piety  of  the  Herrnhuters, 
and  their  worship  became  his  ideal  of  what  all  elevat- 
ing and  edifying  Christian  worship  should  be.  Indeed, 
their  influence  is  seen  in  his  fundamental  conceptions  of 
religion,  of  theology,  and  of  the  church.  A  Herrnhuter 
indeed  he  always  was,  only  of  a  higher  order,  —  a  mys- 
tic, but  more  than  a  mystic.  He  was  a  man  of  too 
large  a  personality  to  remain  only  such,  especially  in  an 
age  like  that. 

On  the  intellectual  side  of  his  development,  as  we 
shall  see,  he  came  under  the  influence  of  the  philo- 
sophical movements  of  his  time,  or  rather  of  move- 
ments that  passed  more  comprehensively  under  the 
name  of  Illuminism.  But  his  religious  culture  stood 
by  him.  He  only  sought  to  strike  below  these  move- 
ments, and  to  secure  a  position  that  should  enable  him 
to  comprehend  what  was  true  in  them,  but  that  should 
also  comprehend  much  more.  On  the  speculative  side  11 
he  developed  as  a  sceptic.  But  on  the  religious  side, 
he  was  a  mystic  to  the  end,  and  it  contributed  to  his 
rescue,  not  only  from  the  old  Rationalism  that  Kant 
had  fought  down,  but  from  the  new  Rationalism  of  the 
Illumination  itself,  of  which  Kant  was  one  of  the  chief 
promoters,  against  which  Schleiermacher  subsequently 
reacted,  and  ultimately  it  saved  him  from  other  influ- 
ences of  the  Illumination.  But  his  immense  specu- 
lative and  dialectical  ability  modified  his  mystical 
tendencies,  giving  us  a  higher  type  of  mysticism,  free 


8  REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

from  the  intellectual  crudeness  which  he  found  so  prev- 
alent in  the  Moravian  church. 

2.  What  called  itself  the  Illumination  in  Schleier- 
macher's  day  was  an  effort  to  emancipate  the  human 
mind,  in  different  departments  of  its  activity,  from  the 
bondage  of  tradition.  In  philosophy  it  was  represented 
by  Kant,  in  literature  by  Goethe,  in  pedagogy  by  Rous- 
seau, in  politics  by  the  French  Revolution,  which  in 
Germany  found  no  counterpart,  but  with  which  many 
who  were  animated  by  the  new  spirit,  Schleiermacher 
among  them,  to  a  degree  sympathized;  in  theology  it 
was  represented,  with  essential  modifications,  by  Schleier- 
macher himself.  In  early  life  he  had  disclosed  a  scepti- 
cal attitude  with  respect  to  alleged  historic  facts  and 
had  passed  sleepless  nights  over  the  dark  problem  of 
eternal  punishment.  Although  profoundly  religious, 
he  was  always  in  a  high  degree  intellectually  inquisitive 
and  was  conscientious  in  seeking  to  secure  for  his  faith 
a  soUd  foundation.  While  connected  with  the  school 
at  Barby,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  his  speculative  difficul- 
ties reached  the  crisis  point.  He  challenged  the  doc- 
trine of  eternal  punishment,  of  the  atonement,  of  the 
deity  of  Christ,  of  the  supernatural  character  of  Chris- 
tianity in  general  as  then  taught,  and  he  regarded  the 
arguments  of  his  teachers  on  moot  questions  as  incon- 
sequential and  inconclusive.  He  charged  that  they  were 
silent  about  objections  brought  by  its  critics  against  the 
Christianity  of  tradition,  that  they  endeavored  to  conceal 
sceptical  opinions  from  him,  and  gave  him  no  adequate 
opportunity  to  know  them  or  to  investigate  their  valid- 
ity. This  naturally  only  stimulated  him  to  know  the 
utmost.     All  this   mental   activity   and  independence, 


SPIRITUAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT       9 

although  lingering  still  in  the  realm  of  scepticism,  or 
rather  perhaps  because  of  it,  shows  his  gift  for  theology 
and  his  vocation  to  it.  He  lays  his  mental  difficulties 
before  his  father  and  his  maternal  uncle,  a  professor  at 
Halle  University.  He  receives  judicious  counsel  from 
his  uncle,  but  evokes  a  storm  of  indignant,  yet  not  the 
less  pathetic,  reproach  from  his  dogmatic  and  pietistic 
father,  and  then  follows  a  temporary  strain  in  the  rela- 
tions of  parent  and  son,  although  happily  without  per- 
manent bad  results.  The  correspondence  that  follows 
is  profoundly  interesting,  as  illustrating  the  strength  of 
paternal  and  of  filial  affection  in  the  German  household. 
The  very  extreme  of  filial  devotion  is  manifest  in  the 
son's  willingness  to  leave  the  whole  question  of  his  pro- 
cedure to  the  decision  of  the  father  and  the  school 
authorities.  But  his  intellectual  and  moral  indepen- 
dence and  the  strong  individuality  of  his  character  are 
seen  in  the  tenacity  with  which  he  maintains  the  right 
of  free  inquiry,  while  a  trace  of  the  early  dogmatic  in- 
fluence is  evident  in  a  certain  semi-apologetic  attitude 
toward  his  father,  as  though  he  was  doing  the  father 
a  wrong  in  thus  wounding  his  feelings,  and  as  if  some- 
how the  necessity  of  changing  his  opinions  involved  a 
personal  fault.  The  upshot  of  the  matter  is  a  break 
with  the  school  authorities,  but  with  mutual  good  will 
and  respect.  In  1787,  therefore,  at  the  age  of  nineteen, 
without  knowledge  of  the  world,  a  diminutive,  shy, 
awkward,  somewhat  unkempt  youth,  but  self-reliant 
and  awake  to  the  vast  significance  of  human  life,  he  is 
sent  to  the  University  of  Halle  and  enters  upon  a  new 
sphere  of  intellectual  activity.  He  was  fortunate  in 
coming  under  the  influence  of  his  uncle,  a  man  of  toler- 


10         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ant  spirit  and  well-balanced  judgment,  whose  shaping 
hand  in  Schleiermacher's  development  is  abundantly 
acknowledged.  For  two  years  he  led  a  desultory  stu- 
dent life,  foraging  widely  and  gathering  only  that  for 
which  at  the  time  he  hungered.  What  he  says  of  him- 
self, the  year  after  leaving  the  university,  is  also  true 
of  his  university  course :  "  Although  there  are  certain 
branches  of  knowledge  for  which  I  have  a  kind  of  re- 
pugnance, there  is  not  one  for  which  I  have  an  exclu- 
sive predilection.  .  .  .  Everything  that  I  do  is  done 
with  a  certain  degree  of  impetuosity.  ...  I  do  not, 
therefore,  prosecute  any  occupation  according  to  a  fixed 
hour  or  day,  but  fitfully  and  during  irregular  periods." 
From  this  it  would  seem  that  there  was  no  unity  in 
his  work,  and  no  reference  to  anything  beyond  the  im- 
mediate present.  He  had  no  definite  objective  point, 
but  followed  the  impulse  that  led  him  to  satisfy  the 
immediate  hunger  of  the  mind.  Semler,  the  pioneer  in 
Biblical  criticism,  and  Knapp,  the  dogmatician,  are 
teachers  in  the  university,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
he  got  much  from  them.  He  was  awakened,  however,  to 
the  study  of  history,  he  continued  his  classical  studies ; 
and  his  uncle  and  Eberhard,  the  latter  a  teacher  of 
philosophy,  led  him  to  the  study  of  Kant,  and  under 
this  influence  he  laid  his  foundation  in  philosophic 
knowledge.  His  father,  who  had  a  great  admiration  for 
the  moral  earnestness  and  austerity  of  Kant,  and  who 
had  been  a  student  and  once  a  disciple  of  his,  had 
already  recommended  the  study,  and  early  in  his  univer- 
sity course  he  writes  his  father  as  follows,  ^  "  As  for 
the  Kantian  philosophy,  which  you  recommend  me  to 
i"Life  and  Letters,"  Vol.  I,  p.  68. 


SPIRITUAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT     ii 

study,  I  have  always  had  a  very  favorable  opinion  of  it, 
because  it  brings  back  the  reason  from  the  desert  wastes 
of  metaphysics  into  its  true,  appropriate  sphere."  This 
sphere  is,  of  course,  the  individual  moral  consciousness, 
and  here  we  see  the  beginnings  of  the  influence  of  phil- 
osophic Illuminism  upon  him.  Obliged  to  leave  the 
university  at  the  end  of  two  years,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
one,  he  spends  the  following  year,  1790,  in  the  home 
and  under  the  guidance  of  his  uncle,  who  also  had  left 
the  university  and  had  taken  a  pastorate  at  Drossen. 
Here  he  undertakes  to  gather  up  the  results  of  his  pre- 
vious studies  and  to  unify  his  knowledge.  He  reads 
Kant  once  more.  During  the  six  or  seven  subsequent 
years  he  is  an  almost  constant  student  of  Kant  and 
becomes  gradually  able  clearly  to  differentiate  his  own 
philosophical  position.  He  dips  into  Aristotle's  ethics, 
into  Greek  history,  and  is  in  preparation  for  the  subse- 
quent translation  of  Plato's  works,  a  very  laborious  task 
which  he  began  with  Friedrich  Schlegel,  but  completed 
alone.  At  this  time  he  became  a  candidate  for  the 
ministry  and  took  his  examination  for  licensure.  Dur- 
ing these  three  formative  years,  he,  in  his  own  indepen- 
dent way,  had  passed  under  the  influence  of  philosophic 
Illuminism.  The  three  subsequent  years  he  spent  in 
Schlobitten,  as  tutor  in  the  household  of  a  nobleman,  with 
whose  family  he  always  held  most  friendly  and  advan- 
tageous relations,  and  here  opens  a  new  era  in  his  life. 
Here  for  the  first  time  he  is  called  to  the  exercise  of  his 
preaching  gifts.  He  adopts  the  Scottish  preacher  Blair 
as  his  model,  striving  for  his  clearness  of  thought,  in  com- 
parison with  which  he  regards  his  own  style  as  obscure. 
Cooperating  with  a  clergyman  of  Berlin,  a  family  rela- 


12         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN  PREACHERS 

tive,  he  subsequently  translates  a  volume  of  Blair's  ser- 
mons. Resigning  his  tutorship,  he  enters  the  pastorate 
at  Landsberg  in  1 794,  where  he  remains  two  years.  This 
closes  the  period  of  his  tutelage  in  philosophic  Illumin- 
ism.  He  is  beginning  to  break  away  from  it,  and  is 
soon  to  come  under  the  influence  of  another  phase  of 
Illuminism.  During  the  next  six  years  we  find  him  in 
Berlin,  and  the  period  of  eight  years,  from  1796  to  1804, 
six  years  in  Berlin  and  two  in  the  pastorate  at  Stolpe, 
was  the  most  important,  as  it  was  the  most  intense,  pe- 
riod of  his  intellectual  life,  supremely  significant  for  his 
entire  future.  He  has  passed  through  the  mystical  and 
the  philosophical  phases  of  his  development ;  we  now 
come  to  what  may  be  called  its  artistic  phase. 

3.  At  Berlin  Schleiermacher  was  brought  into  inti- 
mate relations  with  the  so-called  Romantic  school  in 
literature,  of  which  Goethe  and  the  Schlegels  were 
prominent  representatives.  Romanticism,  although  it 
involved  a  break  with  Illuminism  in  its  return  to  the 
past,  was  yet  closely  connected  with  it  and  may  be  called 
a  literary  or  artistic  phase  of  it.  It  was  characterized 
by  great  rhetorical  enthusiasm,  patriotic  enterprise,  and 
especially  by  the  diligent  study  and  semi-poetic  interpre- 
tation of  history  in  the  light  of  modern  ideas.  Its  influ- 
ence upon  Schleiermacher  in  a  social,  literary,  and  in 
general  artistic,  way  was  great.  Under  its  inspiration  he 
enters  the  field  of  authorship.  During  the  period  of  his 
tutorship  we  find  already  the  stirring  and  the  culture  of 
new  artistic  impulses  and  aspirations.  Then  for  the  first 
time  apparently  he  is  brought  into  relation  with  refined 
and  cultivated  women  of  the  world.  With  strong,  manly 
traits,  there  was  still  much  in  his  constitution  that  was 


SPIRITUAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT     13 

feminine,  and  he  coveted  the  society  and  the  friend- 
ship of  such  women.  He  understood  the  heart  of 
woman  as  few  did,  and  association  with  this  cultivated 
nobleman's  family  was  fit  preparation  for  his  Berlin  life 
of  social  and  literary  activity,  in  which  he  became  prom- 
inent as  member  of  a  club  composed  of  some  of  the 
most  cultivated  men  and  women  of  his  day.  Here  in 
this  family  life  he  finds  his  latent  gift  for  music.  Here 
he  begins  to  cultivate  his  literary  tastes,  and  they  have 
influence  in  modifying  his  philosophic  conceptions. 
And  all  this  began  to  make  itself  manifest  in  his  preach- 
ing. He  had  carried  from  the  university  his  native  indi- 
vidualism that  had  been  intensified  by  the  spirit  of  free 
inquiry  which  characterized  the  Illumination.  We  find 
him  in  sympathy  with  the  French  Revolution.  In  the 
social  circle  of  the  Romanticists  in  which  he  moved  in 
Berlin  during  these  six  years  he  finds  lax  views  of 
family  life.  It  was  an  age  of  revolutionary  opinion,  even 
with  respect  to  domestic  relations,  and  prudery  and 
devotion  to  conventional  standards  were  not  among  the 
virtues  of  Berlin  social  life.  Schleiermacher  was  him- 
self a  man  of  spotless  purity  of  personal  character  and 
life,  but  under  the  influence  of  the  free  thought  of  this 
Romanticist  circle  and  of  his  own  individualistic  and 
unconventional  standards,  we  find  him  complicated  with 
respect  to  domestic  questions  in  ways  that  he  subse- 
quently did  not  approve,  and  which  cannot  be  approved 
in  any  age,  however  revolutionary,  by  any  lover  of 
social  order.  But  they  are  after  all  a  testimony  to  the 
lofty  idealism  of  the  man  and  to  the  purity  of  his  spirit, 
even  if  they  show  a  lack  of  practical  wisdom  and  of  re- 
spect for  the  conventionalities  of  life.     These  complica- 


14        REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  t>REACHERS 

tions,  with  which  it  is  not  important  to  linger,  resulted 
in  his  retirement  from  Berlin  for  two  years  to  a  pastor- 
ate in  Stolpe,  an  experience  of  great  value  to  him  intel- 
lectually and  spiritually,  for  they  were  years  of  intense 
study  of  the  great  German  thinkers,  among  them 
Spinoza,  Schelling,  Jacobi,  and  Kant,  and  they  were 
years,  too,  of  great  burdens  of  heart.  Through  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Romanticists  of  Berlin  he  had  been 
induced  to  enter  upon  literary  work,  and  in  1799,  after 
two  months  of  close  work  at  Potsdam,  he  issued  to  the 
world  his  famous  **  Discourses  on  Religion,"  perhaps 
the  most  important  contribution  to  religion  and  theology 
since  the  Reformation.  They  were  a  most  startUng  dis- 
closure of  a  religious,  philosophical,  and  literary  genius 
hitherto  but  relatively  little  known.  This  is  not  the 
place  for  a  discussion  of  the  contents  of  these  discourses, 
and  we  are  concerned  with  them  at  all  only  as  related 
to  his  pulpit  work.  It  is  enough  to  say  here  that  the  in- 
fluence of  the  conceptions  here  embodied  were  felt  and 
were  manifest  in  his  entire  professional  career,  and  that, 
although  measurably  modified  subsequently,  they  were 
on  the  one  side  the  basis  of  his  theology,  and  reemerged 
in  expanded  form  in  his  system  of  Christian  doctrine  and 
have  been  vastly  significant  for  the  evangelical  theology 
of  the  last  three-quarters  of  a  century,  while  on  the  other 
side  they  appeared  in  his  "  Practical  Theology  "  and  have 
significance  not  only  for  German  preaching  but  for  other 
phases  of  cfiurch  Hfe  and  activity.  Answering  to  the 
"  Discourses  on  Religion,"  there  appeared  during  the  fol- 
lowing year  on  the  ethical  side  the  "  Monologues."  These 
two  works,  which  are  a  brilliant  defence  of  the  religious 
and  of  the  ethical  ideal,  are  the  early  flower  of  his  liter- 


SPIRITUAL  AND  INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT     15 

ary  and  artistic  development.  That  this  development 
should  have  found  its  sphere  in  the  realm  of  religious 
and  ethical  thought  is  proof  of  the  seriousness  of  his 
character.  In  1804  he  is  appointed  as  professor  at 
Halle  University,  which  marks  a  new  period  in  his 
career. 

4.  At  Halle,  where  he  remains  for  three  years,  begins 
his  ecclesiastical  and  political  as  well  as  professional 
activity.  He  lectures  on  a  surprising  variety  of  sub- 
jects, Exegesis,  Dogmatics,  and  History,  and  during  a 
portion  of  the  time  he  is  university  preacher.  At  this 
time  Germany  was  thrown  into  confusion  by  the  inva- 
sion of  the  armies  of  Napoleon.  Schleiermacher  threw 
himself,  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  which  he  was  capa- 
ble, into  this  struggle,  and  proved  himself  to  be  a  most 
ardent  and  uncompromising  patriot.  In  his  personal 
fortunes  he  suffered  much ;  and  when,  in  1807,  the  univer- 
sity was  closed  and  its  students  were  dispersed  by  order 
of  the  invader,  he  retired  to  Berlin,  where  he  spent  the 
remainder  of  his  life.  All  his  religious,  philosophical, 
theological,  classical,  and  literary  preparation  fitted  him 
in  a  most  eminent  degree  for  the  position  he  there  held 
during  these  last  and  most  fruitful  years  of  his  public 
career.  Here  he  was  a  popular  lecturer  and  teacher  at 
the  university  which,  in  18 10,  he  aided  in  establishing. 
He  was  an  ecclesiastical  leader,  instrumental  in  the  intro- 
duction of  notable  reforms,  and  particularly  in  the  union 
of  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  branches  of  the  German 
church.  He,  with  his  family,  was  an  important  figure 
in  the  social  life  of  Berlin.  He  was  a  man  of  affairs, 
and  as  a  patriot  and  statesman  his  counsels  were  sought 
by  the  Prussian  government.     To  the  last  he  was  pastor 


1 6         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

of  Trinity  church,  where  he  preached  with  ever  increas- 
ing power  to  the  cultivated  people  of  this  university 
town,  and  with  utmost  pastoral  fidelity  he  instructed  his 
catechistical  classes  and  ordered  the  practical  life  of 
his  church  to  the  end.  It  was  here  that  his  scientific 
and  practical  theology  developed  themselves  into  final 
form,  and  here  they  were  given  to  the  world.  It  now 
remains  to  consider  Schleiermacher's  conception  of  re- 
ligion and  its  bearing  upon  his  practical  theology,  and 
more  particularly  upon  his  work  as  a  preacher. 


II 


SCHLEIERMACHER'S   CONCEPTION  OF  RELIGION  AND 
THEOLOGY 

Schleiermacher's  scientific  theology  is  a  development 
of  his  conception  of  religion,  and  his  practical  theology 
is  closely  related  to  his  scientific  theology.  He  val- 
ued the  science  of  theology  only  as  related  to  the  life 
of  the  church,  and  the  church  held  a  central  place 
in  his  theology.  Theology  has  no  proper  source  out- 
side religion,  and  therefore  cannot  be  divorced  from  the 
life  of  the  church.  It  is  the  product  of  reflection  upon 
the  content  of  rehgious  experience.  It  was  his  aim  to 
do  for  theology  what  he  declared  Kant  had  done  for 
the  human  reason,  "  to  bring  it  from  the  desert  waste  of 
metaphysics  into  its  true  appointed  sphere,"  and  not 
from  the  realm  of  metaphysics  alone,  but  from  every 
external  source.  As  Liickc,  one  of  his  pupils,  says  : 
**  He  brings  it  back  to  the  facts  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness, as  its  basis  and  true  object  of  investigation, 


CONCEPTION  OF  RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY       17 

and  in  doing  this  he  in  fact  secures  for  it  an  objective 
grounding,  i.e.  by  showing  that  it  rests  on  valid  facts  of 
Christian  faith."  A  brief  statement,  therefore,  of  his 
conception  of  religion  seems  necessary.  Religion  be- 
longs to  the  innermost  nature  of  man.  Religion  there- 
fore is  natural.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  supernatural, 
as  involving  a  sense  of  the  Infinite  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  Finite,  or  a  sense  of  the  presence  of  God  in  the 
soul.  This  conception  of  religion,  as  supernatural,  of 
itself  disposes  of  the  charge  against  Schleiermacher, 
that  he  was  a  pantheist.  Much  of  his  terminology,  in- 
fluenced by  the  study  of  Spinoza  and  by  the  rhetorical 
exuberance  of  Romanticism,  has  confessedly  a  panthe- 
istic basis.  But  by  recognizing  the  world-ground  or 
world-spirit  as  both  subject  and  object,  he  escapes  the 
abyss  of  pantheism.  Since,  then,  religion  is  at  once 
natural  and  supernatural,  there  can  be  no  contradiction, 
for  both  are  parts  of  one  complex  whole.  Thus  what 
was  false  in  the  naturalism  of  his  day  on  the  one  side 
and  in  its  orthodox  supernaturalism  on  the  other  side  is 
undone  at  a  stroke.  This  consciousness  of  the  presence 
of  God  in  the  soul,  which  is  represented  as  a  sense  of 
the  Infinite  in  the  Finite,  is  not  at  all  dependent  for  its 
validity  on  anything  outside  of  it,  whether  above  it,  or 
below  it,  or  back  of  it,  however  closely  it  may  be  con- 
nected with  it.  It  is  not  dependent  upon  the  doctrines 
or  beliefs  of  the  church,  as  the  dogmatists  would  teach ; 
it  is  not  dependent  on  any  institutional  form  which  re- 
ligion may  take  whether  of  church  or  of  sacrament,  as 
the  ecclesiastic  would  teach ;  it  is  not  dependent  on 
state  alliance,  as  the  politician  holds ;  nor  upon  the 
nature  of  thought  in  its  relation  to  being,  as  the  Hege- 


1 8         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

Han  teaches  ;  nor  upon  the  moral  consciousness,  as  Kant 
teaches;  nor  is  it  to  be  identified  with  the  aesthetic 
sense,  however  closely  allied  with  it,  as  the  cultured 
Romanticists  would  have  it ;  nor  with  that  form  of  mys- 
ticism that  consists  in  union  with  God  through  submis- 
sion of  will.  It  is  deeper  still.  Various  terms  are  used 
to  designate  it.  In  an  explanatory  note  to  the  second 
discourse,  on  the  "  Nature  of  Religion,"  he  justifies  this 
variety  of  designation  on  the  ground  of  the  rhetorical 
and  descriptive,  as  distinguished  from  the  scientific,  char- 
acter of  the  "  Discourses."  Religion  is  a  consciousness, 
a  consciousness  of  the  Infinite  or  of  the  Universe,  as,  with 
reference  to  the  audiences  to  which  the  **  Discourses  " 
were  first  addressed,  he  prefers  to  call  it,  presupposing 
God  as  the  spirit  of  the  Universe.  It  is  a  sense  of  or 
taste  for  the  Infinite.  It  is  an  intuition  of  the  Universe. 
In  the  later  and  maturer  form  of  the  "  Discourses," 
however,  the  prevailing  term  is  "feeling."  This  con- 
sciousness, sense,  taste,  this  immediate  realization  in 
consciousness  of  the  Infinite,  or  of  the  world-spirit, 
within  the  soul,  takes  the  form  of  absolute  dependence. 
The  sense  of  personal  freedom  belongs  to  the  ethical 
consciousness,  which,  according  to  Schleiermacher,  has 
a  relative,  and  it  must  be  confessed,  too  great,  indepen- 
dence of  the  religious  consciousness.  This  sense  of 
absolute  dependence,  —  this  only  is  religion.  It  is  the 
deepmost  reality  in  man.  Relatively  independent  of  all 
else  in  him,  it  is  still  the  impelling  energy  of  all  man's 
religious  thinking,  of  all  his  purest  moral  convictions, 
of  all  noblest  sense  of  the  beautiful,  and  of  all  deter- 
minations of  the  will.  Religion,  therefore,  is  the  heart 
of  science,  art,  and  morality.      But  these   may  exist 


CONCEPTION    OF  RELIGION  AND   THEOLOGY       19 

without  religion  and  in  relative  independence  of  it. 
Only  in  a  secondary  and  derived  sense  can  they  ever  be 
called  religion/'and  never  at  all  save  as  they  are  pene- 
trated by  the  power  of  the  religious  sense.  Religion 
has  thus  a  validity  of  its  own,  independently  of  any  form 
our  thought  may  take,  even  with  respect  to  the  being 
touching  whom  the  sense  of  dependence  is  exercised,  or 
with  respect  to  any  scheme  of  doctrine  or  any  institu- 
tion, or  any  form  of  ethics  or  of  art. 

Although  religion  is  thus  a  purely  subjective  product, 
as  being  grounded  in  the  constitution  of  man  and  express- 
ing its  contents,  it  nevertheless  is  evoked  and  developed 
under  historic  conditions.  Schleiermacher,  therefore, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  a  merely  abstract  religion, 
which  is  a  product  of  speculation  and  does  not  repre- 
sent the  reality  of  reUgion.  All  religions,  as  historic 
realities,  express,  under  varying  historic  conditions,  in 
some  degree  and  in  some  form,  the  contents  of  the 
religious  consciousness.  The  distinguishing  peculiarity 
of  Christianity  as  religion  is  that  it  is  evoked  and  devel- 
oped by  the  historic  Christ,  who  brings  a  new  religious 
spirit  into  the  world,  and  who  in  awakening  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  of  the  individual  Christian  imparts 
the  content  of  his  own  religious  consciousness.  If  at 
first  Christ  appears  only  as  the  historic  occasion  for  the 
development  of  the  individual  religious  consciousness, 
he  gradually  assumes  a  more  positive  and  creative  sig- 
nificance. He  becomes  the  source  and  norm  of  the 
religious  life,  upon  whom  the  individual  Christian  is 
absolutely  dependent ;  and  if  at  first  the  significance  of 
what  we  call  religious  truth  for  the  development  of  the 
religious  life  seems  to  be  minimized, —  and  he  holds  the 


20    REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

position  that  religion  cannot  be  evoked  by  teaching,  but 
must  be  quickened  and  nurtured  by  feeling  and  imagi- 
nation, —  in  the  end  the  value  of  objective  religious  truth 
as  found  in  the  Scripture  records  is  more  fully  recog- 
nized. It  is  this  inner  reality  of  religion  as  an  experi- 
ence of  the  heart  that  constitutes  its  sacredness.  It  is 
this  that  honors  the  individual  soul  and  life.  The  rights, 
the  sacred  rights,  of  religious  individuality  constituted, 
therefore,  one  of  Schleiermacher's  fundamental  princi- 
ples. It  is  doubtless  largely  a  product  of  his  early  reli- 
gious training  and  experience,  but  other  influences 
furthered  it.  His  theory  of  religion  naturally  led  to  an 
extreme  form  of  individualism,  as  all  forms  of  mysti- 
cal subjectivity  are  likely  to  do.  It  has  been  frequently 
pointed  out  that  a  strict  construction  of  Schleiermacher's 
theory  would  leave  no  place  for  religion  as  an  asso- 
ciate life.  But  this  was  far  enough  from  his  conception. 
It  is  true  that  he  isolated  the  element  of  feeling  in  reli- 
gion from  the  intellectual  and  ethical  factors  that  border 
upon  it,  but  it  was  only  in  idea,  and  it  was  far  from  his 
purpose  to  divorce  the  emotional  from  the  mental  and 
ethical  elements  of  the  practical  religious  life.  These 
inner  religious  experiences,  as  being  dependent  upon 
their  common  quickening  source  in  Christ  and  as  involv- 
ing a  common  living  relation  with  him,  must  express 
themselves  in  associate  life.  These  experiences  are  the 
basis  of  all  Christian  fellowship,  and  just  this  is  the 
foundation  of  the  church.  Christianity,  therefore,  as 
religion  is  not  only  an  individual  Christian  life  produc- 
ing religion,  but  it  is  a  church  producing  religion.  Thus, 
while  he  lays  great  stress  upon  the  sacredness  of  the 
individual  soul  and  upon  its  rights,  both  in  the  "  Dis- 


CONCEPTION  OF  RELIGION  AND  THEOLOGY      21 

courses  "  and  in  the  "  Monologues,"  he  lays  equal  stress 
upon  the  church,  and  in  his  hands  the  church  gains 
new  and  vastly  increased  significance.  No  theologian 
of  the  modern  world  has  put  such  honor  upon  religious 
individuality,  and  none  has  put  higher  honor  upon  the 
religious  community.  With  him,  in  fact,  the  modern 
church  emerges  into  new  life.  It  is  the  significance  of 
the  church  that  determines  his  definition  of  theology. 
It  is  "  the  science  of  the  church."  It  is  more  than  the 
science  of  Christianity,  for  we  cannot  conceive  of  Chris- 
tianity as  existing  practically  in  complete  independence 
of  the  church.  The  claims  for  religion  which  Schleier- 
macher  set  forth  in  his  "  Discourses  on  Religion  to  those 
Cultivated  People  who  are  among  its  Despisers,"  among 
whom  were  some  of  his  own  personal  friends,  was  a 
most  startling  one  and  made  a  tremendous  impression, 
and  no  wonder,  considering  the  character  of  the  age  in 
which  they  appeared.  And  it  is  an  influence  that  is 
still  felt  in  the  religion  and  theology  of  the  Christian 
church.  In  many  ways  Schleiermacher  modified  as  he 
developed.  But,  as  Pfleiderer  suggests  in  his  **  Develop- 
ment of  Theology  in  Germany,"  the  "  Discourses " 
contain  his  starting-point.  His  future  theological  devel- 
opment was  along  that  line,  although  constantly  toward 
a  larger  measure  of  harmony  with  the  theology  of  the 
church.  His  fundamental  positions,  however,  were 
never  materially  changed.  It  is  enough  to  say,  just 
here,  that  the  work  he  did  has  profound  significance 
for  Christian  theology.  Christian  ethics,  and  for  the 
practical  life  of  the  church,  and  in  many  ways  especially 
for  Christian  preaching.  It  has  detached  theology 
from  abstract  speculation,   and  has  secured  for  it  an 


22         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

independent  basis.  It  has  carried  out  in  another  direc- 
tion what  Kant  initiated,  and  has  laid  the  foundation 
for  a  new  type  of  Christian  apologetics.  It  is  the 
Christian  consciousness,  reflecting  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tian revelation,  that  has  become  normative  for  Christian 
theology,  and  out  of  this,  as  already  intimated,  Schleier- 
macher's  whole  theological  system  developed.  It  has 
placed  ethics  upon  a  more  distinctly  Christian  founda- 
tion, and  has  resulted  in  a  new  development  of  social 
ethics.  It  concerns  us,  however,  to  consider  more  spe- 
cifically the  bearing  of  Schleiermacher's  religious  and 
theological  conceptions  upon  the  work  of  preaching. 
In  the  light  of  them  we  may  perhaps  see  more  clearly 
the  influence  upon  the  preaching  of  our  own  day. 


Ill 

THE   PREACHING  OF  SCHLEIERMACHER 

All  the  wealth  of  Schleiermacher's  genius  and  varied 
acquisitions  and  culture  were  made  tributary  indirectly, 
but  not  the  less  effectively,  to  his  preaching.  He  had  the 
artistic  as  well  as  the  religious  and  scientific  equipment. 
He  displayed  rare  gifts  as  a  preacher,  and  attached 
supreme  importance  to  the  preacher's  function.  From 
the  time  of  his  licensure  in  1790  to  the  close  of  his  life 
in  1834  he  preached  almost  continuously,  and  the  preach- 
ing interest  was,  in  his  apprehension,  second  to  none 
other.  While  professor  at  Halle  and  later  at  Berlin  he 
regarded  preaching  as  supplemental  to  the  work  of 
teaching,  and  in  both  teaching  and  preaching  he  had 
but  one  aim.     His  theological  lectures  and  his  sermons 


THE  PREACHING  OF  SCHLEIERMACHER         23 

had  to  a  considerable  extent  the  same  subject-matter, 
although  presented  of  course  in  different  form.^  It  has 
been  shown  by  one  of  his  pupils  that  the  subjects  discussed 
in  a  scientific  manner  in  his  "  Glaubenslehre  "  appear 
to  a  very  large  extent  in  popular  form  in  his  sermons, 
so  that  nearly  his  entire  system  of  Christian  theology 
was  interpreted  in  homiletic  form  to  the  people.  Dur- 
ing his  public  career  he  published  four  large  volumes  of 
sermons,  the  first  in  1801,  the  last  in  1834,  and  with  the 
posthfftnous  sermons  they  number  in  all  ten  volumes. 
They  include  a  great  variety  of  types  of  sermons.  We 
have  the  pastoral  and  ordinary  sermon,  the  occasional, 
the  festal,  the  confirmation,  the  baptismal,  the  funeral, 
the  burial,  the  confessional,  the  parenetic  sermon,  ser- 
mons on  family  life  of  great  impressiveness  and  helpful- 
ness, sermons  on  national  subjects  like  the  one  entitled 
**  A  Nation's  Duty  in  the  War  for  Freedom,"  and  the 
one  entitled  "  Rejoicing  before  God  "  preached  on  the 
anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Leipsic,  which  greatly  stirred 
the  hearts  of  his  patriotic  hearers.  There  are  two 
volumes  of  expository  sermons,  or  homilies,  on  the  Gospel 
according  to  Mark.  The  series  also  includes  a  volume 
of  candidate  sermons,  which  disclose  the  carefulness  of 
his  early  homiletic  method,  the  freshness  of  his  thought, 
and  the  aflfluence  of  his  style.  There  are  perhaps  no 
individual  sermons  that  stand  out  beyond  all  others  as 
preeminently  great.  They  are  of  uniform  excellence. 
But  the  sermon  entitled  "The  Dying  Saviour  our  Exam- 
ple "  may  be  named  as  a  singularly  edifying  Christian 
sermon,  introduced  by  a  homiletic  prayer  of  great  sim- 
plicity and  beauty,  and  the  one  entitled  "  The  Power  of 

1  "  Reminiscences  of  Schleiermacher,"  by  Lucke,  p.  49. 


24         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

Prayer  in  Relation  to  Outward  Circumstances  "  is  a  ser- 
mon of  great  elevation  and  nobility  of  thought,  which 
it  is  almost  certain  suggested  Frederick  Robertson's  ser- 
mon on  Prayer.  But  let  us  examine  his  preaching  more 
specifically. 

I.  It  is  natural  that  we  should  consider  first  his  theory 
of  preaching.  He  had  his  theory ;  it  was  a  well-defined 
theory,  and  he  shaped  his  preaching  by  it.  It  is  fully 
discussed  in  his  "  Homiletics."  ^  Practical  theology  occu- 
pied a  prominent  place  in  Schleiermacher's  thinking. 
Even  as  early  as  his  connection  with  Halle  University 
he  lectured  upon  it,  and  in  his  handling  it  became  a  new 
branch  of  theology.  It  is  that  branch  which  deals  with 
the  life  of  the  church.  The  activities  of  the  church  with 
which  it  deals  are  all  a  testimony,  in  various  lines,  of  the 
inner  life  of  the  church.  Now,  homiletics  is  one  of  the 
branches  of  practical  theology,  and  preaching  is  one  of 
those  activities  that  bear  witness  to  the  reality  of  the 
inner  life  of  the  Christian  community.  It  is  more  than 
a  rhetorical  product,  more  than  ''sacred  rhetoric."  Homi- 
letics is  the  theory  of  the  utterance  of  the  inner  life  of 
the  church  in  the  form  of  speech.  It  is  more  than  the 
utterance  of  certain  objectively  given  truths  by  the 
church  official.  It  must  be  assumed  to  be  the  expres- 
sion of  what  is  common  to  the  Christian  community, 
through  its  leader,  who  is  identified  with  them,  and 
who  only  leads  them  in  the  utterance  of  their  own  sacred 
religious  experiences.  We  see  in  this  the  influence  of 
his  own  early  religious  education  and  experience.  But 
it  is  also  grounded  in  his  well-defined  theory  of  religion 
and  of  theology,  and  this  theory  of  preaching  has  to  a 

1  "Die  Pract.  Theol.,"  IV  Theorie  der  religiosen  Rede,  p.  20i. 


THE   PREACHING   OF   SCHLEIERMACHER         25 

large  extent  been  the  theory  that  has  prevailed  in  the 
German  churches  since  Schleiermacher's  day.  Let  us 
therefore  try  to  understand  it.  It  is  the  preacher's 
function  to  represent  Christianity  as  rehgion,  not  as 
science,  religion  as  incorporated  and  as  manifesting  itself 
in  the  church,  the  communion  of  saints.  It  is  his  work 
to  represent,  to  give  expression  to  {Darstelhing)  the 
experiences  of  the  common  Christian  life.  This  pre- 
supposes a  congregation  that  shares  this  common  experi- 
ence in  adequate  measure  with  the  preacher.  Otherwise 
it  would  not  be  representation,  would  not  be  expression 
of  what  is  common,  would  not  be  testimony,  or  it  would 
be  fruitless  testimony.  The  congregation  is  a  Christian 
assembly  that  meets  for  Christian  worship.  Preaching 
is  a  part  of  the  service  of  common  worship,  all  the  ele- 
ments of  which  are  testimony  as  to  the  reality  of  the 
inner  Christian  life.  This  gives  preaching  a  distinc- 
tively Christian  character,  and  it  must  have  a  certain 
liturgical  quality.  The  congregation  cannot  be  treated 
as  if  wholly  without  religious  life  and  experience,  and  as 
if  practically  in  pagan  condition.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
"  Discourses "  he  represents  the  congregation  as  com- 
posed not  so  much  of  persons  who  are  religious  as  of 
those  who  are  "seeking  religion."  He  had  doubtless 
a  special  purpose  in  this  representation.  But,  however 
that  may  be,  he  does  not  hold  to  it  in  his  "Homiletics." 
The  preaching  with  which  he  deals  is  distinctively 
pastoral  preaching;  evangelistic  or  mission  preaching, 
which  presupposes  a  different  congregation  and  has 
for  its  aim  the  conversion  of  men  to  the  Christian  life, 
is  a  very  different  product,  and  the  discussion  of  it  does 
not  properly  belong  to  Christian  homiletics.      This  con- 


26         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

ception  of  preaching,  which  was  regulative  for  his  own 
ministry,  accounts  in  part  for  his  zeal  in  catechetical 
instruction,  which  he  regarded  as  not  less  important  than 
preaching  itself.  In  this  way  an  instructed  Christian 
congregation  was  prepared  for  him.  This  theory  of 
preaching,  defective  though  it  be,  has  been  substantially 
the  prevailing  theory  in  Germany  since  Schleiermacher's 
time ;  and  confessedly  it  has  in  part  its  analogue  in  the 
preaching  of  the  apostolic  church,  whose  assemblies  were 
Christian  assemblies  and  whose  preaching  was  of  the 
nature  of  Christian  testimony.  Schleiermacher  realized 
his  own  theory,  and  its  effect  upon  his  preaching  will  be 
evident  at  once.  We  have  here  the  experimental  factor 
with  new  emphasis,  and  it  has  had  its  influence  upon  the 
modern  pulpit.  We  do  not  regard  that  as  Christian 
preaching  at  all,  nor  do  we  tolerate  it  as  such,  which  con- 
sists in  the  retailing  of  opinions  which  are  purely  im- 
personal, which  are  based  on  external  authority  and  have 
found  no  appropriation  in  the  innermost  experiences  of 
the  soul  of  the  preacher.  This,  of  course,  is  the  old  evan- 
gehcal  idea,  the  Reformation  idea,  the  Puritan  idea,  of 
preaching.  But  it  has  come  in  new  form  and  with  new 
emphasis.  Such  preaching  is  likely  to  assume  more  for 
the  congregation.  We  find  here,  perhaps,  in  part  an 
explanation  of  the  large  amount  of  pastoral  preaching 
that  characterizes  the  work  of  the  modern  pulpit. 
Preachers  do  not  divide  the  congregation  as  their  fathers 
did.  There  is  more  confidence  in  the  responsiveness  of 
the  congregation  and  in  the  quickening  and  edifying 
power  of  the  truth  presented.  And  this  is  in  line  with 
the  more  largely  persuasive  as  contrasted  with  the  dog- 
matic, argumentative,  and  one-sidedly  intellectual  char- 
acter of  preaching. 


THE  PREACHING  OF   SCHLEIERMACHER         27 

But  its  serious  defect  will  be  evident  at  once.  It 
assumes  too  much  for  the  congregation.  This  defect  in 
Schleiermacher's  own  preaching  was  pointed  out  by  his 
own  followers,  notably  by  Liicke  in  his  "  Reminiscences 
of  Schleiermacher."  He  trusts  too  much  to  the  religious 
consciousness.  He  assumes  that  all  who  are  in  the 
congregation  are  the  subjects  of  the  same  rehgious 
experience.  He  takes  too  little  into  account  the  imper- 
fect operations  of  grace  in  men's  souls.  In  a  word,  he 
idealizes  the  congregation  and  loses  sight  of  facts.  He 
assumes,  as  Liicke  says,  "  an  average  measure  of  grace 
and  leaves  the  defective  stages  for  other  and  simpler 
and  more  specific  forms  of  instruction."  Hence,  as 
Dr.  Sack,  a  Berlin  pastor  of  Schleiermacher's  day  and 
a  family  relative,  asserts,  the  result  was  a  lack  of  per- 
tinence to  the  wants  of  his  hearers  and  to  their  actual 
state.  Hence  especially  a  lack  of  the  practical  quality 
and  an  excess  of  sentiment  and  feeling,  in  other  words, 
of  the  parenetic  element  in  his  preaching.  Hence  a 
certain  lack  in  popular  quality. 

The  basis  of  this  defect  may  be  due  in  large  measure 
to  a  defective  conception  of  religion  itself.  Pfleiderer, 
in  his  "  Development  of  Theology  in  Germany, "  ^ 
has  shown  that  by  isolating  the  ethical  from  the  emo- 
tional in  religion,  that  is  by  excluding  from  the  concep- 
tion of  religion  the  consciousness  of  moral  alliance 
with  God,  and  making  it  consist  wholly  in  the  sense 
of  absolute  dependence,  Schleiermacher  failed  to  grasp 
the  full  content  of  the  conception.  Absolute  depend- 
ence suggests  primarily  causality  —  creatorship  in  God. 

1  "  The  Development  of  Theology  in  Germany  since  Kant  and  its 
Progress  in  Great  Britain  since  1825,"  p.  105. 


28         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

Pfleiderer  finds  here  the  influence  of  Spinoza.  God  is 
causal  energy.  There  can  be  only  one  kind  of  religious 
experience  in  such  relation  with  God.  There  is  no 
chance  for  quaUtative,  but  only  for  quantitative,  dis- 
tinctions in  religious  experience.  If  the  concep- 
tion of  religion  is  complex,  it  may  involve  different 
kinds  of  religious  experience,  and  these  different  kinds 
of  religious  experience  must  be  met  by  the  preacher. 
Schleiermacher  did  not  recognize  them  and  therefore 
made  no  effort  to  meet  them.  The  members  of  his 
congregation  were  all  on  the  same  plane.  It  may  be 
possible  that  erroneous  conceptions  of  the  significance 
of  the  baptismal  estate  may  in  part  account  for  the 
perpetuation  of  this  conception  of  preaching  in  Germany. 
A  baptized  congregation  is  assumed  to  be  a  Christian 
congregation  and  should  be  addressed  as  such.  Perhaps 
this  may  in  part  explain  the  relative  ineffectiveness  of 
German  preaching. 

2.  Let  us  look  secondly  at  the  subject-matter  of 
Schleiermacher's  preaching.  Religion  as  an  experience, 
even  in  its  Christian  form,  must  be  wholly  subjective 
and  personal.  It  is  dependent  upon  nothing  external 
for  its  origin.  It  is  neither  Scripture  truth  nor  Christ 
himself  that  originates  the  soul's  religious  experiences. 
Nothing  external  originates  faith,  but  what  is  external 
may  regulate  it.  That  is,  it  may  regulate  reflection 
upon  one's  religious  feelings.  Nothing  that  is  external 
to  the  soul  is  creative  of  religion.  It  is  only  regulative. 
As  Robertson  said  about  the  sacraments,  so  Schleier- 
macher would  say  about  objective  religious  truth,  it 
cannot  produce  life,  but  it  may  support  Ufe.  In 
a  letter  to  Jacobi  in  1818,  Schleiermacher  says:  "The 


THE   PREACHING  OF   SCHLEIERMACHER         29 

Bible  is  the  original  interpretation  of  the  Christian 
feeling,  and  for  this  very  reason  so  firmly  established 
that  we  ought  not  to  attempt  more  than  further  to 
understand  and  develop  it.  This  right  of  develop- 
ment, however,  I,  as  a  Protestant  theologian,  will 
allow  no  one  to  defraud  me  of."  The  authority  of 
Scripture,  therefore,  is  in  its  harmony  with  faith,  not  in 
its  creative  energy  with  respect  to  it.  It  is  regulative 
only  in  so  far  as  it  is  in  harmony  with  the  preacher's 
subjective  feeling,  and,  as  Liicke  suggests,  furnishes  a 
touching-point  for  his  reflection.  This  position,  that 
Biblical  revelation  is  only  the  external  occasion,  the 
condition  or  exciting  agency,  not  creative  cause  of  faith, 
seems  to  imply  that  the  latter  is  not  dependent  upon  the 
former.  In  this  he  fails  to  distinguish  between  faith 
and  the  faith  content,  between  the  fides  qua  and  the 
fidis  quae.  This  was  a  position  he  could  not  success- 
fully hold.  He  consequently  modified  it.  We  find 
Christ  increasingly  regarded  as  the  centre  of  the  souFs 
spiritual  life.  The  Christian  soul  is  absolutely  depend- 
ent on  Christ  for  its  faith.  Without  him  the  inner  life 
of  faith  is  unattainable.  Christ  therefore  is  the  supreme 
lord  of  the  soul.  He  saw  that  this  position  was  neces- 
sary to  enable  him  to  distinguish  between  feeling  that 
is  Christian  and  feeling  that  may  have  no  Christian 
character  at  all.  But,  after  all,  while  the  Christian  life 
is  dependent  on  external  agencies,  it  has  an  independent 
reality  and  validity  of  its  own.  As  thus  relatively  inde- 
pendent, it  has  at  hand  a  test  of  value  for  the  Christian 
life  of  any  objectively  given  truths  or  facts  of  Chris- 
tianity that  may  be  brought  to  it.  It  even  tests  for  itself 
the  significance  of  Christ  for  it.     Consequently  historic 


30         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

Christianity  may  be  treated  with  a  large  measure  of  inde- 
pendence. The  Christian  life  does  not  feel  itself  to  be 
absolutely  dependent,  especially  upon  the  forms  of  Chris- 
tian doctrine,  and  may  treat  them  with  freedom.  It  is 
not  dependent  even  upon  the  forms  in  which  Christianity 
appears  in  the  New  Testament.  We  may  therefore 
discriminate  by  the  test  of  Christian  experience  between 
what  is  primary  and  what  is  secondary  in  the  Christian 
books,  accepting  only  what  faith  regards  as  primary. 
Large  masses  of  material  found  in  the  New  Testament 
may  be  excluded  from  acceptance  as  having  no  signifi- 
cance for  the  Christian  life.  Consequently  Schleier- 
macher  dealt  very  freely  with  the  Christian  documents. 
He  did  not  regard  himself  as  beholden  to  harmonize  his 
teachings  fully  with  the  teachings  even  of  the  New 
Testament.  Church  doctrine  he  treated  almost  cava- 
lierly. The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  as  taught  by  the 
church,  had  no  significance  for  him.  Thus  with  the  church 
doctrine  of  the  atonement.  He  gradually  modified  in  the 
direction  of  what  is  known  as  the  evangelical  position, 
and  sought  to  find  basis  for  a  common  Christian  faith, 
and  his  successors  and  followers  carried  his  modifica- 
tions still  further.  But  it  is  evident,  as  Pfleiderer  sug- 
gests, that  we  have  here  a  pretty  fully  developed  scheme 
of  subjective  theological  individualism,  on  which,  strictly 
applied,  it  would  be  difficult  to  found  a  church  or  to 
develop  a  theology.  It  was  necessary  to  his  position 
that  he  should  find  in  the  Old  Testament  but  little  value 
for  the  distinctively  Christian  Hfe.  Faith  is  domesticated 
only  in  the  New  Testament  and  always  returns  to  it  as 
to  its  native  element,  and  is  competent  to  test  and  to 
reject  the  Old  Testament.     He  did  not  find  the  spirit  of 


THE  PREACHING  OF  SCHLEIERMACHER         31 

Christianity  in  Judaism.  No  part  of  the  Old  Testament 
did  he  greatly  value.  He  rarely  used  it  in  preaching. 
In  the  ten  volumes  of  sermons  and  homilies  there  are 
less  than  twenty  passages  from  the  Old  Testament  used 
as  texts,  and  those  used  are  in  occasional  sermons. 
They  are  from  the  historical  books,  Solomon's  Song, 
Ecclesiastes,  Job,  Psalms,  and  the  major  prophets,  and 
they  are  the  basis,  to  a  considerable  extent,  of  political 
and  patriotic  sermons.  Singularly,  there  are  more  from 
Solomon's  Song  than  from  any  other  Old  Testament 
book.  His  pastoral  preaching  is  always  from  the  New 
Testament,  and  in  the  use  of  the  text  he  plants  himself 
squarely  upon  its  historic  sense.  He  holds  that  such 
texts  should  never  be  used  as  mottoes  and  should  never 
be  twisted  by  any  species  of  accommodation.  On  the 
other  hand,  his  Old  Testament  texts  are  always  accom- 
modated, and  he  justified  this  on  the  ground  that  they 
must  be  adjusted  to  the  spirit  of  the  New  Testament 
and  must  be  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  practical 
Christian  life.  Now  it  is  evident  enough  that  a  very 
important  position  has  been  won  for  the  church  and 
for  the  pulpit  by  Schleiermacher's  teachings,  despite 
their  extremely  subjective  and  individualistic  tendencies. 
We  have  learned  the  testing  power  of  Christian  expe- 
rience with  respect  to  the  value  for  the  Christian  life 
of  the  objectively  given  content  of  the  Bible,  and  we 
accustom  ourselves  to  apply  the  test  with  freedom. 
Christianity  has  been  brought  back  to  Christ.  The  pul- 
pit has  therefore  been  brought  back  to  Christianity,  and 
it  assigns  to  the  Old  Testament  its  proper  place.  The 
doctrine  of  the  Christian  consciousness  as  normative  for 
Christian  truth  has  been  lifted  into  its  proper  relation 


32         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

with  Biblical  revelation  and  with  church  tradition.  As 
a  result  the  pulpit  keeps  closer  to  the  centre  of  Christian 
truth.  The  preacher  is  better  able  to  discriminate 
between  the  facts  and  truths  of  Christianity  that  appeal 
to  and  affect  Christian  experience,  and  those  that  are 
relatively  remote  from  it.  And  all  this  has  had  an 
important  influence  upon  Christian  apologetics. 

We  have  seen  that  Schleiermacher's  conception  of 
religion  involved  a  modification  in  the  conception  of  the 
supernatural.  Religion  as  belonging  to  the  constitution 
of  the  human  soul  is  natural.  As  having,  however,  its 
inspiring  source  in  God  who  is  revealed  in  Christ,  it  is 
supernatural,  but  as  having  the  human  soul  for  the 
sphere  of  its  operation,  the  supernatural  itself  must  have 
an  element  of  naturalness.  To  the  naturalness  of  the 
inner  experience  answers  a  corresponding  element  of 
naturalness  in  the  objective  agency,  revelation.  Revela- 
tion as  supernatural,  therefore,  does  not  involve  the 
breaking  down  or  suspension  of  the  order  of  nature. 
They  are  both  parts  of  one  whole ;  even  miracles  have 
an  element  of  naturalness.  It  is  not  my  vocation  either 
to  criticise  or  to  defend  Schleiermacher's  supernatural- 
ism  ;  I  have  only  to  say  that  it  has  had  a  very  decisive 
influence  upon  the  supernaturalism  of  the  entire  evan- 
gelical church  of  our  age.  It  has  become  a  common- 
place of  the  pulpit,  and  its  influence  is  seen  in  the 
emphasis  that  is  put  upon  the  naturalness  of  religion. 
The  close  connection  between  Schleiermacher's  theology 
and  his  preaching  has  already  been  noted.  It  was 
Neander's  opinion  that  his  sermons  were  necessary  to 
an  adequate  understanding  of  his  theology;  and  De 
Wette,    who    was    an    attendant    at   Schleiermacher's 


THE  PREACHING  OF  SCHLEIERMACHER    33 

church,  discovered  from  his  preaching  his  own  points  of 
agreement  with  him  in  theology.  Everywhere  and 
always  it  is  the  theology  of  feeling.  But  as  his  theology 
becomes  more  clearly  defined,  we  see  the  effect  in  his 
sermons.  The  difference  between  his  lectures  and  his 
sermons  is  mostly  one  of  form.  In  a  letter  to  a  friend 
in  1805  he  says,  "I  have  a  lively  hope  that  by  means 
of  the  connection  between  my  sermons  and  my  lectures 
I  shall  be  able  to  bring  clearly  home  to  the  minds  of  the 
students  the  true  relations  between  speculation  and 
piety ;  and  from  both  places  alike,  from  the  pulpit  and 
from  the  professor's  chair,  I  trust  I  shall  be  able  to 
enlighten  their  minds  and  to  warm  their  hearts."  All 
the  great  truths  with  which  Christian  theology  deals  are 
discussed  in  his  sermons.  The  centre  point  of  all  his 
pulpit  theology,  as  of  his  dogmatics,  is  fellowship  with 
Christ.  And  it  may  be  said  that  his  theological  concep- 
tions are  peculiarly  well  adapted  to  pulpit  discussion. 
We  can  see  at  once  why  the  subject-matter  of  his  preach- 
ing is  of  a  theological  rather  than  of  a  Biblical  character. 
It  is  his  theory  of  preaching  that  its  subject-matter 
should  consist  in  reflection  upon  the  content  of  Christian 
experience  rather  than  in  reflection  upon  the  content  of 
Biblical  revelation. 

3.  The  object  which  Schleiermacher  proposed  for 
himself  in  his  preaching,  or  the  use  of  the  material  as 
well  as  the  material  to  be  used,  was  in  harmony  with 
his  conception  of  what  Christian  preaching  should  be. 
As  preaching  is  an  expression,  not  primarily  of  ideas, 
opinions,  mental  judgments,  but  of  the  experiences  of 
the  heart,  its  object  must  be  to  reproduce,  or  to  develop 
still  further,  such  experiences  in  the  souls  of  the  hearers. 


34         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

The  object  is  not  primarily  to  develop  or  direct  or  shape 
religious  thought.  Preaching  is  not  teaching  primarily. 
It  is  not  the  exposition  or  interpretation  of  truth,  but 
the  utterance  of  the  experience  of  the  heart.  Religion 
is  not  developed  by  teaching.  Teaching,  of  course,  is 
necessary  and  is  not  ignored,  but  the  aim  of  preaching 
is  not  primarily  to  instruct.  This,  in  Schleiermacher's 
opinion,  was  the  fault  of  the  orthodox  and  rationalistic 
preaching  of  his  day,  against  which  he  strongly  reacted. 
In  the  introduction  to  the  sermon  entitled  "  The  Dying 
Saviour  our  Example "  he  objects  to  the  obtruding  of 
church  dogmas  relating  to  the  death  of  Christ  into  the 
Good  Friday  service,  and  against  spending  time  "in 
raising  questions,  in  sifting  opinions,  in  instituting  dis- 
cussions, by  which  minds  are  not  moved  for  good,  —  at 
the  very  time  when  we  desire  to  be  most  cordially  united." 
And  this  in  general  was  his  attitude  toward  the  doc- 
trines of  the  church.  Nor  was  the  object  of  preaching  to 
convert  man.  Something  more  than  ethical  and  evan- 
gelistic impression  is  demanded.  The  object  of  his 
preaching  is  edification.  His  object  is  so  to  express 
the  inner  realities  of  the  Christian  life  in  forms  of 
Christian  thought,  by  the  aid  of  the  imagination  and 
by  the  impelling  energy  of  Christian  feeling,  conviction, 
and  affection,  that  this  same  Christian  life  in  the  souls 
of  his  hearers  may  be  furthered  and  developed.  Preach- 
ing is  the  testimony  of  the  heart  in  thoughts  that  are  fitted 
to  convey  its  treasures  of  experience.  It  is  not  possi- 
ble to  nurture  the  Christian  life  by  aiming  primarily  at 
the  understanding,  or  the  conscience,  or  the  will.  It 
must  be  evoked  by  stimulating  the  imagination  and 
nurturing  the  feelings.     Hence  he  denounces  the  ortho- 


THE  PREACHING  OF  SCHLEIERMACHER    35 

dox  indoctrination  and  the  rationalistic  moralizing  of 
the  preaching  of  his  day,  criticising  its  externality  and 
unprofitableness.  One  must  preach  from  within  ;  our 
words  must  be  the  utterance  of  the  heart.  Then  they 
will  be  natural  and  effective.  Schleiermacher  doubtless 
would  not  deny  that  the  primary  function  of  the  preacher 
is  that  of  an  interpreter  of  the  truth,  or  of  spiritual 
realities ;  but  he  would  insist  that  it  must  be  an  interpre- 
tation of  the  truth  as  transmuted  into  the  content  of 
spiritual  experience,  and  not  of  objective  truth  as  such, 
and  it  must  be  primarily  an  interpretation  to  the  heart 
or  to  the  religious  feelings  rather  than  to  the  under- 
standing. And  the  assumption  of  this  position  without 
doubt  involved  a  relative  undervaluation  of  the  objec- 
tive truth  of  revelation  as  such,  and  of  the  importance 
of  increase  in  Christian  knowledge  as  related  to  Chris- 
tian edification.  This  would  naturally  result  in  a  dimi- 
nution of  the  didactic  and  an  increase  of  the  emotional 
and  sentimental  element  in  preaching.  This  result  we 
discover  in  German  preaching  in  general  as  contrasted 
with  English  and  American  preaching,  which  lays  more 
stress  upon  the  importance  of  objective  Biblical  truth. 
In  the  preaching  of  Schleiermacher  himself  it  was  not 
seen  nor  felt.  The  great  intellectual  resources  of  the 
man  and  the  wealth  of  his  culture  demanded  and  secured 
free  and  full  expression  in  the  pulpit  as  elsewhere, 
although  his  preaching  might  not  be  characterized  as 
prevailingly  intellectual.  Schleiermacher' s  object,  how- 
ever, did  exclude  conscious  effort  to  secure  determinate 
and  immediate  results,  and  there  is  a  lack  of  definite 
ethical  and  evangelistic  purpose. 

How  far  the  direct  influence  of  Schleiermacher  with 


36         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

respect  to  the  problem  of  the  proper  object  of  preaching 
is  being  felt  in  the  modern  pulpit  may  be  uncertain. 
But  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  edification,  not  by  the 
direct  inculcation  of  objective  truth,  but  by  the  inter- 
pretation of  truth  as  vitalized  by  ethical  and  spiritual 
experience,  is  the  prevailing  object  of  the  modern 
preacher.  Not  to  regulate  the  doctrinal  opinions  nor 
the  ethical  behavior  of  the  congregation,  but  to  meet  its 
spiritual  needs,  is  the  aim.  The  processes  and  agencies 
of  spiritual  nurture  are  honored,  and  imagination  and 
the  emotions,  as  distinguished  from  the  dialectical 
faculties,  are  brought  into  fuller  exercise.  Consequently 
the  intellectual  character  of  our  preaching  has  been 
modified  but  not  lost. 

4.  As  might  be  expected  the  tone  of  Schleiermacher's 
preaching  was  emotionally  and  religiously  elevated  in  a 
very  high  degree.  It  was  wealthy  in  its  subject-matter, 
the  product  of  a  capacious,  well-stored,  well-trained,  and 
highly  suggestive  mind,  holding  as  in  solution  for  pulpit 
use  all  the  vast  treasures  of  his  learning  and  disclosing 
at  times,  although  in  wholly  simple  form  harmonious 
with  the  work  of  preaching,  the  immense  dialectical 
abilities  of  the  man.  But  it  was  always  exceedingly 
earnest  and  affectionate,  yet  always  dignified,  and  so 
most  nobly  persuasive  in  its  character.  It  bore  the 
mark  of  the  cheerful,  hopeful,  optimistic,  even  supremely 
idealistic,  character  of  the  man,  and  thus  disclosed  itself 
in  the  earnestness  of  his  manner  and  in  the  sympathetic 
tones  of  his  voice.  It  was  always  his  conscious  effort  to 
elevate  and  ennoble  the  hearer,  and  to  leave  him  a  little 
further  advanced  in  the  Christian  life  as  the  result  of  his 
effort.     He  would  never  have  the  sermon  end  with  any- 


THE   PREACHING  OF   SCHLEIERMACHER         37 

thing  but  a  tone  of  cheerfulness,  hopefulness,  and 
encouragement.  The  sermon  must  always  be  tributary 
to  the  worship  of  the  congregation.  It  is  an  organic 
part  of  worship  itself.  Preaching,  prayer,  and  song  are 
parts  of  one  whole.  He  would  enlist  the  service  of 
song  in  the  interest  of  preaching,  at  one  period  selecting 
his  own  hymns  from  the  liturgical  treasures  of  the 
church,  and  having  them  printed  for  the  use  of  his  con- 
gregation. He  compiled  a  new  hymn-book,  and  sought 
to  influence  the  worship  of  other  churches.  The  Mora- 
vian service  he  exalts  as  a  model  for  all  the  churches. 
It  was  this  liturgical  influence,  the  elevated,  idealistic 
character  of  the  man,  and  his  theory  of  what  preaching 
ought  to  be,  that  fostered  this  elevated  tone  in  his  work 
as  a  preacher.  His  theology  also  fostered  it.  Fellow- 
ship with  Christ  received  supreme  emphasis  in  all  his 
theological  thinking  and  in  his  entire  religious  life,  and 
this  imparted  a  nobility  and  dignity  and  tenderness  as  well 
to  all  his  preaching.  His  message  came  warm  and  fresh 
from  the  fountain  of  life.  It  was  this  elevated,  penetrat- 
ing quality  that  Humboldt  had  in  mind  in  writing  thus 
of  him :  "  Of  Schleiermacher  it  may  be  said,  as  of  the 
greater  number  of  very  distinguished  persons,  but  in  an 
incomparably  higher  degree,  that  their  speaking  ex- 
ceeded their  writings  in  power.  Those,  therefore,  who 
may  have  read  his  numerous  writings  ever  so  diligently, 
but  who  never  heard  him  speak,  must  nevertheless  re- 
main unacquainted  with  the  most  rare  power  and  the  most 
remarkable  qualities  of  the  man.  His  strength  lay  in 
the  deeply  penetrating  character  of  his  words.  It  would 
be  wrong  to  call  it  rhetoric,  for  it  was  so  entirely  free 
from  art.     It  was  the  persuasive,  penetrative,  kindling 


38  REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

effusion  of  a  feeling,  which  seemed  not  so  much  to  be 
enlightened  by  one  of  the  rarest  of  intellects,  as  to  move 
side  by  side  with  it  in  perfect  unison."  ReUgious 
thought  that  is  caught  up  and  penetrated  by  religious 
feeling  and  affection,  and  that  undertakes  to  interpret 
the  significance  of  the  experience  of  the  inner  life  and 
to  impress  its  power,  will  of  necessity  be  an  earnest, 
sympathetic,  dignified,  emotionally  elevated,  and  enno- 
bhng  utterance.  It  was  his  conviction  that  the  content 
of  preaching  should  never  go  outside  of  Christianity  as  a 
subjective  religious  experience,  and  to  interpret  in  terms 
of  rational  thought  the  inner  significance  of  religious 
life  was  his  conscious  supreme  vocation.  Hence  his 
objection  against  making  any  additions  to  the  content  of 
pulpit  thought  from  outside  sources.  Doubtless  he 
wrought  into  his  own  discourses  material  that  came 
from  the  wealth  of  his  own  humanistic  culture,  but  it 
was  contrary  to  his  theory  and  contrary  to  his  conscious 
purpose.  To  present  Christian  thought  unmixed  with 
human  speculation  and  to  interpret  only  what  is  real  to 
Christian  experience  was  his  aim.  Doubtless  his  preach- 
ing was  deficient  in  many  respects  in  what  calls  itself 
the  evangelical  note,  and  notably  so  in  the  evangelistic 
note.  It  may  have  obscured  or  even  neglected  Christian 
truths  that  are  necessary  to  further  Christian  piety,  for 
in  maintaining  the  position  that  piety  is  normative  for 
truth,  he  forgot  that  truth  also  maybe  normative  for  piety. 
But  it  was  always  a  most  deeply  spiritual  and  devout 
utterance,  as  from  the  consciousness  of  fellowship  with 
the  Redeemer.  It  is  this  "  pectoral  theology"  that  has 
given  an  earnest,  sympathetic,  devout,  and  elevated 
spiritual  tone  to  the  best  type  of  modern   preaching. 


THE   PREACHING   OF   SCHLEIERMACHER         39 

Because  his  own  preaching  was  an  outpouring  of  the 
heart  Schleiermacher  found  great  joy  in  it.  His  letters 
indicate  the  satisfaction  it  gave  him.  He  has  a  "con- 
stant hankering  after  the  pulpit,"  even  when  at  work 
upon  the  beloved  Plato,  and  his  discourses  to  the 
students  of  the  university  formed,  as  he  says,  "no 
slight  addition  to  my  happiness."  Elevated  in  tone  and 
adapted  to  an  educated  and  cultivated  audience  as  was 
his  preaching,  he  still  sought  to  reach  the  common 
people,  and  at  Berlin  he  adapted  the  afternoon  service 
to  their  needs.  It  was  his  opinion  that  "all  sermons 
and  mine  more  especially  are  only  intended  to  be 
heard."  Hence  he  was  opposed  to  the  publication  of 
his  sermons  and  only  yielded  after  the  earnest  solicita- 
tion of  his  friends.  He  was  also  opposed  to  written 
sermons.  At  first  he  carefully  wrote,  but  in  the  interest 
of  greater  impressiveness  and  effectiveness  he  abandoned 
the  practice,  because  he  found  that  it  hampered  him. 
He  introduced  the  change  by  dropping  one  part  of  the 
written  product  after  another,  beginning  with  the  con- 
clusion and  ending  with  the  introduction,  till  nothing 
was  left,  and  he  at  last  spoke  wholly  without  writing; 
and  this  became  tributary,  not  only  to  the  freedom  and 
the  cogency,  but  to  the  elevation  of  his  preaching.  The 
sermon  that  is  the  free  outpouring  of  the  life  from 
within  must  be  elevated  and  spiritually  impressive. 

5.  Looking  at  the  formal  aspects  of  Schleiermacher's 
preaching,  or  at  the  ordering  and  expression  of  the 
thought,  we  are  at  once  impressed  with  its  organic 
quality.  There  is  no  external  manipulation  of  material, 
no  mechanistic  combination  of  parts.  The  sermon  is 
not  built.     It  is  a  simple,  free  outflow  and  onflow.     It 


40         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

is  an  instrument  for  the  expression  of  Christian  feeling 
in  the  form  of  Christian  reflection  for  the  purpose  of 
Christian  edification.  -  The  chief  interest  is  the  subject- 
matter.  The  form  is  subordinate  to  it,  and  is  so  shaped 
as  to  bring  out  the  material  to  the  best  advantage.  The 
fulness,  the  wealth,  the  affluence,  the  apparent  spon- 
taneity, is  apparent  at  once.  The  form  is  simply  the 
natural  and  easy  unfolding,  as  by  organic  process  of 
the  subject-matter.  To  secure  this,  he  abandoned  the 
manuscript,  as  already  suggested.  This  freedom  which 
he  sought  does  not  imply  that  he  was  at  all  careless 
with  respect  to  his  work.  In  his  early  ministry  he 
labored  to  perfect  his  instrument.  At  that  time  he  gave 
his  father  an  account  of  his  sermon  preparation.  "  I 
cannot,"  he  says,  in  a  letter  from  Schlobitten,  in  1793,^ 
"  commence  writing  down  a  sermon,  until  I  have  thor- 
oughly arranged  it  in  my  thoughts,  even  to  the  smallest 
details;  for  otherwise  I  run  the  risk  of  anticipating 
some  things  or  of  putting  them  in  the  wrong  place." 
And  he  says  that  the  unwritten  sermons  gave  him 
"  much  more  trouble  than  any  I  have  ever  composed." 
Then  follows  a  description  of  his  method  which  is  inter- 
esting :  '*  I  first  made  a  very  careful  disposition  of  my 
subject,  and  then  sought  various  modes  of  expression 
for  each  thought.  Next,  I  took  first  one  part  of  the 
discussion,  then  another  and  another,  and  preached  it  in 
thought :  and  then  returned  again  to  the  first,  probably 
changing  the  terms  in  some  measure,  and  then  I  delivered 
my  sermon  bit  by  bit,  several  times  over,  and  also  com- 
mitted to  memory  the  entire  plan."  This  habit  of  care- 
ful preparation   in  the  early  period  stood  by  him  all 

«  Life  and  Letters,"  Vol.  I,  p.  106  ff. 


THE   PREACHING  OF   SCHLEIERMACHER         41 

through  his  ministry.  It  resulted  in  great  clearness  of 
method.  The  structural  form  is  more  manifest  in  the 
early  period,  and  gradually  becomes  more  flexible  and 
free,  but  it  is  always  the  unfolding  process.  He  does 
not  anchor  closely  to  his  text,  but  uses  it  freely,  not, 
however,  in  the  way  of  accommodation,  save  in  his  use 
of  the  Old  Testament.  He  takes  the  exact  thought  of 
the  text,  or  some  thought  that  is  easily  and  naturally 
suggested  by  it,  and  not  by  some  remote  process,  as  the 
basis  of  his  discussion ;  but  in  the  formal  sense  the 
thought  of  the  sermon  is  not  closely  bound  to  the  text. 
The  introduction  is  of  a  general  character,  and  is  rarely 
explanatory.  It  is  not  his  purpose  to  unfold  the  subject 
in  a  strictly  expository  manner.  He  will  rather  draw 
freely  from  his  own  resources.  Even  in  his  expository 
discourses,  although  merging  himself  fully  within  the 
sphere  of  the  writer's  thought,  and  making  it  his  own, 
as  the  first  and  necessary  step  in  his  work,  he  neverthe- 
less draws  abundantly  from  the  wealth  of  his  own  inner 
life,  and  the  thought  unfolds  itself  very  freely  in  line 
with  his  own  mental  processes.  The  thought,  once  ap- 
propriated, expands  and  takes  new  form  under  the 
vitalizing  touch  of  his  own  personality.  He  is  thus  a 
most  quickening  and  suggestive  expository  preacher. 
The  theme  of  the  sermon  always  comes  naturally  from 
the  text  and  is  not  forced  upon  it.  He  discusses  but 
two  or  three  topics,  which  are  a  natural  partition  of  the 
subject,  and  the  topics  are  generally  textual.  The  theme 
is  definite  and  frequently  stated  in  propositional  form, 
which  calls  for  definite,  and  yet  admits  of  free,  treatment. 
"That  we  should  not  be  the  servants,  but  friends  of 
God ! "      "  Only   he    can    free   who   is    above   all   the 


42         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

prophets."  "  The  Redeemer  is  born  as  the  Son  of 
God."  "That  the  joy  of  the  advent  of  Christ  is  en- 
hanced by  the  consideration  that  he  came  to  bring 
a  sword."  Themes  Hke  these  suggest  at  once  the  large- 
ness of  the  thought  discussed  and  the  definiteness  with 
which  it  is  conceived.  The  topics  are  frequently  stated 
at  the  outset,  and  restated  in  the  discussion.  In  the 
development  of  the  sermon  we  rarely  find  Scriptural 
citation.  This  is  in  harmony  with  his  conception  of  the 
relation  of  Scripture  to  the  religious  life.  The  sermon 
material  should  never  come  directly,  but  indirectly,  out 
of  the  Scriptures  as  they  are  spiritually  appropriated. 
He  uses  his  material  in  a  large,  free  way,  but  bridges 
the  path  from  topic  to  topic  by  skilful  transition,  so 
that,  while  the  sermon  has  a  large,  free  movement,  the 
continuity  of  thought  is  observed  and  made  clear  and 
the  whole  discourse  is  held  in  unity.  There  is  there- 
fore great  variety  of  method  and  there  is  nothing  stereo- 
typed. The  rapidity  with  which  the  final  preparation 
was  made  and  the  influence  of  the  audience  upon  him 
in  his  extemporaneous  movement  of  thought,  especially 
in  the  later  period  of  life,  furthered  this  freedom  of 
development.  The  thought  of  the  sermon  was  with 
him  for  several  days.  But  not  till  Saturday  evening  did 
he  outline  his  material.  As  to  the  development,  he 
leaves  much  to  the  inspiration  of  the  audience,  believing 
that  the  material  should  never  be  wholly  reproduced, 
but  that  a  good  deal  should  be  left  to  the  productive 
energies  in  the  stimulating  process  of  discussion.  In 
this  we  are  reminded  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher.  His 
enthusiasm  for  preaching  was  a  stimulus  to  his  produc- 
tiveness.    His  reserve  in  private  intercourse,  especially 


THE  PREACHING  OF   SCHLEIERMACHER         43 

in  the  presence  of  strangers,  was  in  striking  contrast  to 
the  spontaneity  and  joyfulness  with  which  he  poured 
out  the  fulness  of  his  soul  in  the  pulpit,  and  in  this  he 
reminds  us  of  Phillips  Brooks. 

The  diction  of  the  sermon  is  always  characterized 
by  his  reflective  habit  of  mind,  but  bears  the  mark  of 
his  earnest,  sympathetic  feeling,  and  is  always  dignified 
and  measurably  concrete.  The  style  is  descriptive,  but 
it  is  descriptive  of  the  inner  world  of  consciousness, 
hence  it  is  not  abstruse,  but  reflective  in  its  quality. 
The  "  Discourses  on  Religion  "  are  more  exuberant  in 
their  diction  than  his  sermons.  The  earlier  sermons  are 
the  more  stimulating,  the  later  more  contemplative  and 
more  edifying.  They  bear  the  mark  of  pastoral  experi- 
ence with  the  sorrows  and  sufferings  of  life.  There  is 
nothing  obtrusive  in  his  diction;  the  sentences  are 
German-like,  long  and  complex,  but  they  are  clear  and 
accurate.  They  demand  careful  attention,  but  from  the 
German  point  of  view  the  style  is  adapted  to  its  work. 
The  absence  of  Biblical  diction  and  of  Biblical  material 
in  general,  as  already  suggested,  is  notable.  Moreover 
there  is  but  little  material  from  secular  life,  and  but 
little  coloring  from  his  humanistic  culture ;  but  the  ser- 
mon always  rings  true  to  the  Christian  life,  and  is  lifted 
into  a  great  height  by  a  noble  Christian  feeling.  For 
his  success  as  a  preacher  he  was  to  no  considerable  ex- 
tent dependent  upon  his  physical  personality.  He  was 
short  of  stature,  and  as  to  his  shoulders  slightly  de- 
formed; but  he  had  a  broad  forehead,  firm-set  lips, 
strong  Roman  nose,  a  keen  eye,  and  an  altogether  seri- 
ous and  vigorous  countenance  and  a  penetrating  voice, 
and  this  was  doubtless  tributary  to  his  impressiveness. 


44         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

During  his  whole  public  career,  he  was  infirm  of  body, 
and,  like  Robert  Hall,  often  preached  in  great  pain.  In 
preaching  he  began  slowly  and  deliberately  and  with 
complete  self-possession  and  composure,  but  warmed 
with  his  discourse,  and  then,  though  always  under  con- 
trol, his  speech  became  a  torrent.  Altogether  his 
preaching  illustrates  the  triumph  of  the  spirit  of  the 
preacher.  The  method  was  well  adapted  to  the  sub- 
stance, tone,  and  aim  of  the  sermon,  and  all  were 
tributary  to  the  spiritual  ennobling  and  enrichment  of 
the  hearer. 

6.  As  to  the  type  of  Schleiermacher's  preaching,  it  is 
not  altogether  easy  to  classify.  In  the  general  sense  of 
the  term,  he  was  an  intellectual  preacher.  His  dis- 
courses met  the  needs  of  educated  and  cultured  people. 
But  they  are  not  obtrusively  intellectual.  We  are  not 
at  first  impressed  with  their  intellectual  wealth.  There 
is  a  basis  of  rich  mental  culture,  but  it  makes  no  exhibi- 
tion of  itself.  He  was  a  highly  emotional  preacher,  but 
it  was  not  evangelistic  emotion.  He  was  a  reflective 
and  not  an  obtrusively  rhetorical  preacher.  He  never 
permitted  the  exuberant  rhetoric  of  the  "  Discourses  on 
Religion  "  to  disclose  itself  in  his  sermons.  In  general 
he  should  be  characterized  as  a  pastoral  preacher.  He 
took  personal  direction  of  his  parish  affairs,  notwith- 
standing his  arduous  duties  as  university  professor, 
and  his  more  public  duties  as  a  patriotic  citizen,  con- 
tinuing to  care  for  his  catechetical  classes,  even  up  to 
the  close  of  life.  This  pastoral  spirit  he  carried  into 
the  pulpit.  All  this  is  in  line  with  his  conception  of 
Christian  preaching  as  the  utterance  of  the  content  of 
Christian  experience  with  reference  to  the  edification 


THE  PREACHING  OF  SCHLEIERMACHER         45 

of  the  congregation.  An  examination  of  his  sermons 
will  show  how  largely  the  great  truths  of  Christianity 
as  related  to  Christian  experience  appear  in  his  preach- 
ing. He  is  eminently  a  didactic  preacher,  in  a  modified 
sense,  even  a  doctrinal  preacher,  for,  as  already  sug- 
gested, the  content  of  his  system  of  Christian  doctrine 
appears  in  homiletic  form  to  a  large  extent  in  his 
sermons.  But  he  made  no  distinction  between  the 
doctrinal  and  ethical  aspects  of  Christian  truth.  The 
only  distinction  is  of  form.  All  doctrine  is  practical 
and  the  end  of  doctrine  is  life.  In  this  we  are  reminded 
of  Bushnell  and  Brooks  and  Robertson,  and  of  other 
preachers  with  the  modern  spirit.  Schleiermacher 
therefore  may  be  called  a  pastoral  preacher  of  the 
higher  ethical  type.  In  order  to  secure  a  proper  analy- 
sis of  the  nature  of  religion,  he  would  isolate  it.  But 
of  course  he  never  allowed  his  religion  to  evaporate  in 
emotion.  Emotion  was  but  the  inner  impulse  that  in- 
spired all  his  varied  activities.  He  says,  indeed,  that 
religion  is  to  act  with  moraHty,  rather  than  to  produce 
morality.  But  practically  religion  is  with  him  the  very 
life  of  morality.  Despite  his  extremely  subjective  and 
individualistic  conception  of  religion  and  its  tendency  to 
isolate  the  religious  feeling  from  other  contents  of  ex- 
perience, he  nevertheless  in  his  scientific  work  devel- 
oped Christianity  on  its  ethical  side,  and  especially  on 
the  side  of  social  ethics,  more  fully  than  it  had  ever  been 
developed  before  and  made  to  it  the  most  important 
contribution  of  the  last  century.  And  with  equal  fidel- 
ity in  his  pulpit  teaching  he  carried  out  this  develop- 
ment on  its  practical  side,  thus  realizing  his  conception 
of  Christianity  as  the  religion  of  life  and  not  primarily 


46         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

of  thought.  His  sermons  consist  very  largely  in  the 
application  of  Christianity  to  the  practical  interests  of 
life,  individual  or  social.  He  devoted  himself  largely  to 
the  interests  of  domestic  life,  and  his  sermons  upon 
these  subjects  are  of  permanent  value.  As  we  have 
seen,  he  was  an  enthusiastic  patriot,  and  his  patriotic 
sermons  are  among  his  noblest  utterances.  He  exalted 
Christ  as  the  realization  of  the  ideal  of  true  human  life. 
The  sinless  completeness  of  Jesus  is  central  in  his 
Christian  apologetics.  Christ  is  presented,  not  only  as 
the  one  in  whose  spiritual  fellowship  we  nourish  our 
own  spiritual  life  and  so  find  fellowship  with  God,  but 
as  our  ethical  ideal  in  accordance  with  which  our  Hfe  is 
to  be  shaped  as  well  as  inspired.  This  practical  quality 
is  the  more  striking  when  we  consider  the  profoundly 
reflective,  introverted,  speculative,  as  well  as  poetic, 
quality  of  his  mind.  It  is  still  more  striking  when  we 
recall  the  mystical  basis  of  his  religion.  He  was  not  a 
practical  mystic  as  Tauler  was.  Religion  does  not  find 
its  centre  in  the  will,  but  in  feeling.  He  might  easily 
have  been  a  sentimental  and  contemplative  mystic,  and 
but  for  his  humanistic  culture  and  his  serious  sense  of 
the  ethical  significance  of  human  life,  he  would  have 
been  such.  It  was  therefore  quite  the  necessity  of  his 
rich,  full  inner  life  of  feeling  to  push  vigorously  over 
into  the  domain  of  thought  and  then  to  take  the  prod- 
uct of  his  thought,  penetrated  by  the  life  of  his 
emotion,  out  still  farther  into  the  world  of  practical 
reality.  And  he  demonstrates  that  true  religious  feel- 
ing cannot  be  isolated  from  mental  and  moral  life. 
The  "Monologues"  interpret  the  "Discourses."  They 
disclose  his  own  sense  of  the  might  of  his  moral  man- 


THE  PREACHING  OF  SCHLEIERMACHER         47 

hood,  which  he  carefully  cultivated  and  defended  as  a 
most  sacred  possession,  and  the  like  of  which  he  would 
encourage  in  every  human  being.  These  ringing  words 
reveal  the  strength  and  the  enthusiasm  of  that  manhood. 
"Yes,  my  mind  shall  preserve  its  vigor  in  advancing 
years,  never  shall  spirit  and  courage  forsake  me ;  what 
I  rejoice  in  now,  I  will  rejoice  in  forevermore;  firm 
shall  my  will  remain,  and  strong  my  imagination. 
Nothing  shall  deprive  me  of  the  magic  key  which  un- 
locks for  me  the  mysterious  portals  of  the  world  above ; 
never  shall  the  fervor  of  my  love  be  exting^shed.  I 
will  not  behold  the  dreaded  weakness  of  age ;  I  vow  to 
despise  every  calamity  which  does  not  affect  the  objects 
of  ray  existence,  and  I  swear  to  preserve  myself  in 
eternal  young."  These  are  the  words  of  a  man  whose 
wealth  of  religious  feeling  found  its  noblest  expression 
in  mental  and  moral  life,  and  it  found  vent  in  the  pulpit, 
not  only  in  noble  thought,  but  in  the  inculcation  of  a 
noble  moral  life.  The  man  who  in  old  age  could  stand 
at  the  grave  of  his  only  son,  and,  while  shaken  to  the 
foundations  by  a  stroke  from  which  he  never  wholly 
recovered,  could  with  calmness  commit  him  to  mother 
earth,  and  speak  strong  words  of  hope  to  those  who 
mourned  with  him,  proved  his  own  fidehty  to  a  noble 
ideal  of  a  manly  moral  life. 

How  far  and  in  what  ways  the  development  of  the 
religious  life  of  the  modem  church  has  influenced  its 
practical  or  its  ethical  or  philanthropic  life  would  be  a 
profoundly  interesting  inquiry.  It  is  doubtless  true  that 
modem  philanthropy  has  its  distinctively  secular  aspect, 
and  that  it  has  developed  to  a  considerable  extent  as  a 
distinctively  ethical  interest,  and  independently  of  the 


48    REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

church.  There  is  a  moral  life  that  has  had  a  very- 
vigorous  growth  apart  from  religion,  and  it  may  almost 
be  called  a  characteristic  of  our  time  ;  but  it  is  question- 
able, at  least,  whether  it  may  not  ultimately  be  the  prod- 
uct of  the  Christian  conception  of  man  that  has  been 
so  fully  domesticated  in  modern  life.  It  is  at  any  rate 
certain  that  the  revival  of  religion  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  the  early  part  of  the  nine- 
teenth, in  Germany  and  in  Great  Britain,  has  resulted 
in  a  mighty  quickening  of  the  moral  and  philanthropic 
life  of  the  church  and  has  had  wide-reaching  results 
in  what  is  called  secular  society.  The  immense  vitality 
of  Christianity  and  its  demonstrated  power  in  practical 
life  was  one  of  the  most  striking  phenomena  of  the  last 
century.  It  is  also  certain  that  all  the  great  leaders  in 
modern  German  evangelicalism  who  were  influenced  by 
Schleiermacher  have  been  profoundly  interested  in  the 
problems  of  practical  theology  and  of  Christian  ethics, 
and  in  the  development  at  once  of  the  piety  and  of  the 
practical  morality  and  philanthropy  of  the  churches. 
The  great  modern  missionary  movement  is  the  direct 
product  of  the  revival  of  evangelical  piety,  and  all  this 
illustrates  the  great  truth,  enunciated  and  exemplified  by 
Schleiermacher,  that  religion  is  the  soul  of  morality. 


CHAPTER   II 

FREDERICK  WILLIAM   ROBERTSON 

In  passing  from  Friedrich  Schleiermacher  to  Fred- 
erick Robertson  we  are  at  first  strongly  impressed  with 
their  points  of  contrast.  But  after  all  between  the  two 
men  there  are  notable  points  of  likeness.  In  much  they 
are  kindred  spirits,  and  they  hold  the  same  general  point 
of  view  in  their  estimate  of  religion,  of  theology,  and  of 
the  practical  significance  of  the  Christian  church.  They 
are  alike  in  their  spiritual  insight,  their  delicacy  of  reli- 
gious susceptibility,  their  ardent  affectionateness,  their 
fervid  emotion,  their  sturdy  independence,  their  manly 
courage,  their  tolerance,  their  patriotism,  their  devotion  to 
the  practical  interests  of  men,  their  humanistic  culture, 
and  they  are  both  intrenched  in  the  position  that  "in 
all  matters  of  eternal  truth  the  soul  is  before  the 
intellect."  It  will  always  be  an  honor  to  the  Anglican 
church  that  it  was  the  spiritual  home  of  Frederick 
Robertson.  But  it  cannot  be  claimed  that  he  is  a  dis- 
tinctive product  of  the  Anglican  church.  He  was  the 
product  of  a  broader  world  than  that  in  which  his 
church  moves.  He  had  nothing  of  the  churchliness  that 
characterizes  the  typical  Anglican  preacher,  nothing  of 
his  conservatism,  conventionalism,  and  devotion  to  insti- 
tutional religion.  He  was  subjective,  independent,  revo- 
lutionary, open-hearted,  and  fiery.  He  was  immensely 
human,  and  no  ecclesiastical  establishment  could  bind 
his  free,  imperial  spirit. 

E  49 


So        REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

I 

INFLUENCES  DETERMINATIVE  OF  ROBERTSON'S 
DEVELOPMENT 

In  point  of  time,  Robertson  belongs  to  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century ;  in  point  of  influence,  to  the 
last  half.  He  was  born  in  1816  and  died  in  1853,  at  the 
age  of  thirty-seven  years  and  six  months.  His  public 
life  covers  a  period  of  only  thirteen  years,  during  which 
he  was  not  very  widely  known,  even  in  his  own  country. 
It  is  since  his  death  that  his  place  as  a  preacher  has  been 
established,  and  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  among 
the  educated  classes,  throughout  the  EngHsh-speaking 
world  and  throughout  Germany  as  well,  his  name  has 
become  more  widely  cherished,  and  his  work  more 
widely  influential,  than  that  of  any  other  English 
preacher  of  his  century. 

I.  In  looking  at  the  career  of  this  singularly  gifted 
and  impressive  preacher,  we  note  at  the  outset  his  dis- 
tinctive English  qualities.  Although  in  remote  lineage 
he  may  have  been  Scotch,  he  had  become  thoroughly 
Anglicanized,  and  he  disclosed  EngHsh  rather  than 
Scottish  traits.  He  was,  in  fact,  every  inch  an  English- 
man, and  he  bore  the  marks  of  the  EngHsh  culture  of 
the  first  half  of  the  century.  He  was,  indeed,  a  man  of 
much  finer  fibre  than  the  average  Englishman,  even 
than  the  English  preacher.  His  mind  was  much  more 
speculative,  it  had  a  subtler  insight,  a  richer  aesthetic 
sensibility,  a  much  more  delicate  emotional  susceptibility, 
than  most  Englishmen  possess.  But  in  his  basal  quali- 
ties, those  qualities  that  gave  solidity  and  balance  to  his 


ROBERTSON'S  DEVELOPMENT         51 

intellectual  and  moral  character,  and  in  which  lay  in 
large  measure  the  secret  of  his  strength,  he  was  a 
thorough  Englishman.  He  was  an  idealist  of  high 
degree,  but  to  his  singularly  delicate  poetic  insight  and 
to  his  artistic  taste  there  was  added  the  broad,  Saxon 
common  sense  that  reaches  its  best  development  in  the 
typical  Englishman.  He  was  trained  in  the  realm  of 
abstract  thought,  and  was  at  home  in  the  high  altitudes 
of  speculation,  at  once  intuitive  and  dialectical  in  his 
mental  operations,  but  he  had  the  objective  realism  of 
the  English  mind.  It  was  this  mental  bias  that  led  him 
away  from  the  transcendentalism  of  his  early  years, 
"  the  rock  on  which  I  split."  It  was  this  that  led  him 
to  the  study  of  the  physical  sciences,  —  chemistry,  natu- 
ral philosophy,  geology,  and  botany, — for  "the  effect  of 
certainty  which  they  produce  on  the  mind  is  always  a 
healthy  feeling."  It  was  this  perhaps  that  inclined  him 
toward  the  Biblical  type  of  preaching,  in  which  he  could 
deal  with  religion  in  its  objective,  historic  form,  in  which 
he,  shunning  the  artifice  of  allegory,  always  grasped  the 
historic  sense,  and  in  which,  despite  his  brilliant  imagi- 
nation and  skill  in  detaching  the  inner  suggestiveness 
of  Biblical  truth,  he  always  proved  himself  to  be  a  sane 
and  reliable  critic.  He  had  a  very  keen  and  delicate 
sense  of  the  ideaUstic  or  poetic  aspects  of  nature,  but  he 
also  had  a  sharp  eye  for  its  external  and  local  aspects. 
It  was,  in  part,  this  English  realism  that  led  him  from 
Shelley's  "  atmosphere  of  profligacy  "  to  the  wholesome 
tranquillity  of  Wordsworth  and  to  Shakespeare's  "spirit 
of  sunny  endeavor/'  and  to  his  "  acquiescence  in  things 
as  they  are  —  not  incompatible  with  a  cheerful  resolve 
to  make  them  better,"  which  he  testifies  is  "good  for 


52         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

the  mind."  It  was  this  English  common  sense  that 
led  him  to  take  a  balanced  view  of  all  things  and 
secured  him  against  the  one-sidedness  of  his  impulses. 
No  modern  preacher  has  entered  more  deeply  than  he 
into  the  life  of  Christ,  and  his  spirit  of  self-sacrificing 
devotion  became  almost  a  passion  with  him.  It  might 
have  become  a  superstition  and  a  supererogatory  sort 
of  passion.  But  he  held  himself  in  moral  poise,  and 
could  say,  "  I  believe  the  spirit  of  exceeding  self-devo- 
tion, as  a  mere  romantic  instinct,  is  but  folly."  He  was 
almost  feminine  in  his  emotional  susceptibilities  and  in 
the  tenderness  of  his  sympathy,  but  all  this  was  matched 
by  a  masculine  strenuousness  of  will  that  increased  in 
force  with  the  passing  years,  and  held  him  steadfast  to 
his  goal.  To  a  shrinking  sensibility  that  was  intensified 
by  the  contradictions  of  life  and  made  morbid  by  physi- 
cal disease,  wa3  added  a  virile  individuality  and  Saxon 
independence  of  character.  He  was  humble,  yet  in 
high  measure  self-asserting.  He  respected  the  opin- 
ions of  others,  yet  in  his  own  opinions  he  refused  to  be 
a  partisan.  "  Save  yourself  from  sectarianism ;  pledge 
yourself  to  no  school,"  is  his  counsel  to  the  working- 
men  of  Brighton  ;  "  cut  your  life  adrift  from  all  party ; 
be  a  slave  to  no  maxims:  stand  fast,  unfettered  and 
free,  servants  only  of  the  truth."  He  kept  his  own 
precept,  and  in  the  spirit  of  this  independence  he  spoke 
with  a  courage  that  is  an  honor  to  the  manliest  race  of 
the  modern  world.  What  he  declares  to  be  true  of  the 
poet  is  true  of  himself,  who  also  had  the  poet's  mind 
and  heart.  "  Every  great  poet,"  he  says,  "  is  a  double- 
natured  man,  with  the  feminine  and  manly  powers  in 
harmonious  union,  having  the  tact  and  the  sympathy 


ENGLISH   TRAITS  53 

and  the  intuition  and  the  tenderness  of  woman,  with  the 
breadth  and  massiveness  of  the  manly  intellect,  besides 
the  calm  justice  which  is  almost  exclusively  masculine." 
It  was  this  manly  independence  of  character  that  gave 
a  martial  heroism  to  his  too  short  earthly  career.  He 
had  the  English  ethical  mind.  Gentle  toward  the  weak 
and  suffering,  he  was  fierce  in  his  moral  indignation 
and  terrible  in  his  denunciation  of  cowardly  wrong.  He 
had  no  weak,  sentimental  notions  about  punishment, 
human  or  divine.  *'  Once  in  my  life,"  he  says,  "  I  felt 
a  terrible  might.  I  knew  and  rejoiced  to  know,  as  I 
spoke,  that  I  was  inflicting  the  sentence  of  a  coward 
and  a  liar's  hell."  He  hated  and  denounced  all  sham 
and  hypocrisy  with  the  intensity  of  Carlyle.  But  he  had 
the  reserve  of  a  gentleman,  and  the  patience  of  a  Chris- 
tian in  all  his  denunciation. 

By  the  patrons  of  tradition  and  convention  he  was 
regarded  as  an  iconoclast,  and  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  in  effect,  although  not  in  spirit  or  method,  he  was 
revolutionary  in  his  teaching ;  but  still  he  had  the  Eng- 
lishman's caution  and  his  conservative  habit  of  mind. 
He  taught  freely  and  boldly,  but  positively  and  con- 
structively. "  Let  them  draw  the  conclusions,  I  state 
truths,"  he  says,  and  for  this  reason  he  was  left  "un- 
molested in  spite  of  great  grumbling,  dissatisfaction,  and 
almost  personal  hatred."  He  was  democratic  in  prin- 
ciple while  he  was  aristocratic  in  sentiment.  "My 
tastes,"  he  says,  "  are  with  the  aristocrat,  my  principles 
with  the  mob."  And  in  all  this  he  is  conscious  of  fellow- 
ship with  John  Milton.  He  was  the  recognized  friend 
of  the  working-men  of  Brighton,  but  he  never  allied  him- 
self even  with  the  Christian  socialists.     He  thought  that 


54         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

he  could  not  preach  to  the  privileged  classes,  and  at  one 
time  he  was  ready  on  this  account  to  resign  his  charge 
at  Cheltenham;  but  he  felt  himself  in  sympathy  with 
their  traditions  and  strenuously  advocated  their  rights. 
He  was  an  advocate  of  revolution  with  reference  to  the 
advancement  of  the  rights  of  the  common  people,  but 
he  hears  with  a  pang  "  of  the  extinction  of  great  names, 
gray  with  the  hoar  of  innumerable  ages  "  and  laments 
"  the  passing  of  great  ancestral  estates  under  the  ham- 
mer of  the  auctioneer."  He  was  catholic  in  spirit 
beyond  the  measure  of  the  ordinary  Englishman,  elevat- 
ing the  church  above  the  sect,  and  humanity  above  the 
nation ;  but  he  had  the  heart  of  a  true  English  patriot. 
His  sense  of  justice  and  of  philanthropy  led  him  to 
distinguish  with  respect  to  the  objects  for  which  a  nation 
might  fight ;  but  his  chivalrous  martial  spirit  would  have 
led  him  to  die  for  England  for  almost  any  cause,  and 
there  were  times  when  he  even  seemed  to  covet  the 
honor.  He  followed  the  English  campaigns  of  the 
past  with  an  almost  boyish  enthusiasm,  and  described 
them  with  singular  skill  and  exactness.  The  English 
sense  of  patriotic  duty  and  patriotic  devotion  fired  him, 
and  he  could  glory  in  a  nation  whose  sons  **  can  die  at 
their  posts  silently,  without  thinking  that  forty  centuries 
were  looking  down  upon  them." 

2.  In  Robertson's  career  we  are  also  impressed  with 
the  influence  of  his  early  English  home.  The  first  five 
years  of  his  life  were  spent  in  a  military  fortification, 
the  next  four  amid  the  Yorkshire  hills.  Till  he  was 
seven  years  of  age  his  parents  were  his  only  teachers. 
During  the  following  seven  years,  a  portion  of  which 
he  spent  in  France,  where   he   mastered   the   French 


EARLY   ENGLISH   HOME  55 

language,  his  father  seems  to  have  had  a  general  direc- 
tion of  his  studies,  till,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  he  was  sent 
to  Edinburgh.  During  all  these  years,  parental  influ- 
ence, nature,  books,  solitude,  were  laying  the  foundations 
for  thoroughly  trained  and  cultivated  character.  It  was 
then  that  his  habits  of  study  were  fixed,  and  here  we 
trace  that  accuracy  and  conscientious  devotion  to  his  in- 
tellectual tasks  that  marked  all  his  later  years.  Here, 
amid  these  influences,  was  developed  that  purity  of  heart 
and  life  that  enabled  him  in  later  years  to  say,  **  I  know 
from  personal  experience  —  and  I  do  know  —  that  feel- 
ings such  as  these,  call  them  romantic  if  you  will,  can 
keep  a  man  all  his  youth  through,  before  a  higher  faith 
has  been  called  into  being,  from  every  species  of  vicious 
and  low  indulgence."  Here,  in  solitude,  at  his  intel- 
lectual tasks,  or  in  the  companionship  of  nature,  he 
developed  that  tendency  to  self-isolation  that  always 
characterized  him,  and  which  is  connected  with  that 
sense  of  loneliness  that  he  often  felt  in  later  years.  In 
a  thoughtful  and  reflective  habit  of  mind,  he  developed  a 
maturity  beyond  his  years.  He  is  a  student  of  Shake- 
speare, and  even  as  a  boy  he  wonders  at  his  knowledge 
of  the  human  heart.  In  his  early  companionships  he 
exhibits  that  chivalrous  tenderness  of  affection  that 
made  him  an  intense  and  steadfast  friend.  In  subse- 
quent life  he  recalls  his  love  for  one  of  his  schoolmates, 
and  his  reference  indicates  the  almost  womanly  delicacy, 
and  at  the  same  time  manly  chivalry,  of  his  affection. 
He  familiarized  himself  with  nature  and  with  all  forms 
of  animal  life,  and  this  developed  his  poetic  tendencies. 
He  knew  the  "  power  of  English  scenery  and  life  to 
calm,  if  not  to  purify,  the  hearts  of  those  whose  lives  are 


56         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

habitually  subjected  to  such  influences;"  and  he  could 
testify  from  experience  that  "  a  man's  character  and 
mind  are  moulded  for  good  or  evil,  far  more  by  the 
forms  of  imagination  which  surround  his  childhood, 
than  by  any  subsequent  scientific  training."  It  was  in 
early  life  that  he  nurtured  that  **  delicacy  and  depth  of 
feeling  "  which  he  regarded  as  a  necessary  prerequisite 
for  the  apprehension  of  poetry,  and  it  was  thus  that  he 
learned  to  associate  poetry  with  religion.  It  is  his  judg- 
ment that  no  man  can  understand  poetry  "  who  has  led 
a  slothful  life,  or  who  has  not  at  one  time  or  other 
loved  to  rise  early  —  no  man  who  in  his  early  walks  has 
not  mingled  with  a  love  of  poetry  a  deep  religious  sense ; 
who  has  not  felt  the  consecrating  effects  of  early  dawn ; 
or  who  has  not  at  one  time  or  another  in  his  early  days, 
in  a  moment  of  deep  enthusiasm,  knelt  down  amid  the 
glories  of  nature,  as  the  ancient  patriarchs  knelt,  and 
feeling  that  none  were  awake  but  the  Creator  and  him- 
self, bowed  down  to  consecrate  and  to  offer  up  the 
whole  of  his  life,  experiencing  also  a  strange  and  awful 
and  mysterious  feeling,  as  if  a  hand  invisible  were  laid 
upon  his  brow,  accepting  the  consecration  and  sacrifice." 
It  is  utterances  like  these  that  disclose  the  power  of  the 
associations  of  his  youth.  Then  also  was  developed 
that  soldierly  spirit  that  was  so  notable  a  characteristic 
of  the  man  and  of  the  preacher.  He  "breathed  the 
atmosphere  in  which  the  English  soldier  lives,"  and  he 
never  lost  the  impressions  of  those  days  upon  his  sus- 
ceptible and  fiery  spirit.  As  is  well  known,  he  was  in- 
clined to  the  military  service,  and  was  turned  aside  from 
it  only  by  a  combination  of  circumstances  to  which,  in 
after  years,  he  attached  a  sort  of  fatality,  and  to  him 


ANGLICAN   INFLUENCES  57 

it  illustrated  the  divine  predestination.  One  is  strongly- 
reminded  of  the  critical  and  sometimes  seemingly  for- 
tuitous character  of  our  earthly  life  by  recalling  how 
slight  a  thing  might  have  committed  Robertson  to  a 
life  in  which  some  at  least,  if  not  all,  of  his  choicest  gifts 
might  have  been  buried,  or  at  least  greatly  obscured, 
and  the  modern  English  pulpit  have  been  robbed  of 
its  brightest  ornament.  No  one  can  fail  to  see  that  all 
the  influences  above  specified  were  tributary  to  his 
power  as  a  preacher,  nor  can,  nor  should,  one  forget 
that  the  piety  of  that  early  home,  a  piety  that  can 
flourish  even  in  a  soldier's  life  and  perhaps  nowhere 
else  so  well  as  in  the  homes  of  many  of  the  officers 
of  the  English  army,  wrought  powerfully  upon  his 
fine  religious  susceptibiUty.  We  should  not  forget  that 
Robertson  was  nurtured  in  the  atmosphere  of  an  Evan- 
gelical piety.  In  subsequent  years  he  was  accustomed 
to  speak  with  severity  of  the  unreality  of  much  of  the 
piety  that  he  found  in  Evangelical  circles.  It  is  not  un- 
likely that  he  was  correct  in  this  estimate,  although  some 
allowance  must  be  made,  perhaps,  for  the  overwrought 
feehng  of  a  theological  antagonist,  and  especially  of  a 
man  who  felt  the  sting  of  personal  wrong.  But  what- 
ever the  truth  of  the  matter  may  be,  he  could  not  and 
would  not  deny,  nor  could  he  ever  forget,  the  reality 
of  the  piety  of  his  early  home,  nor  could,  nor  did,  he 
escape  the  influence  throughout  his  life. 

3.  Robertson's  relation  to  the  Anglican  church  is  an 
interesting  and  an  important  feature  in  the  history  of  his 
development.  In  the  broader  estimate,  as  already  sug- 
gested, he  was  a  product  of  modern  life,  rather  than  of 
the  modern  church.     His  culture  was  characteristically 


58         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

humanistic  rather  than  ecclesiastical,  yet  in  a  restricted 
but  important  sense  he  was  a  product  of  his  church. 
Each  of  the  schools,  the  high,  low,  and  broad,  into 
which,  fortunately  or  unfortunately,  as  one  may  be  in- 
clined to  consider  it,  the  church  is  divided,  and  which 
represent  tendencies  of  thought  at  work  in  various  forms 
and  degrees  in  almost  all  sections  of  the  modern  church, 
exerted  an  influence  upon  him,  and  he  was  at  one  or  an- 
other time  affiliated  with  them.  On  the  aesthetic,  as 
well  as  on  the  devotional,  and,  perhaps  the  philanthropic 
side,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  on  the  theoretic  side 
\  (for  he  held  that  some  of  the  fundamental  tenets  of  this 
\  party  were  true),  he  had  a  bias  toward  the  high  church, 
)  or  what  was  later  called  the  Ritualistic  party.  The 
lofty,  although  unhistoric,  conceptions  of  the  dignity  of 
the  church  held  by  its  chief  representative  men,  their 
elevated  conceptions  of  the  sanctities  of  worship,  their 
reverence  for  the  past,  their  devoutness  and  earnestness 
of  character,  their  devotion  to  a  life  of  beneficence,  and 
the  fact  that  this  party  numbered  in  its  ranks  many  of 
the  most  gifted  and  cultivated  minds  in  the  church,  like 
Keble  and  Newman,  had  strong  attractions  for  him ;  and 
he  seemed  at  one  time,  as  by  his  own  tastes  and  poetic 
inclinations,  destined  to  be  numbered  with  them.  Indeed, 
so  near  to  superficial  observation  did  he  seem  to  come 
to  them,  that  at  one  time  they  were  almost  tempted  to 
claim  him.  In  fact,  not  more  than  five  months  before 
his  death,  he  confesses  that  "with  a  thoughtful  and 
large-minded  high  churchman  I  believe  I  could  sympa- 
thize more  than  with  any  other  section  of  the  church." 
It  was  his  behef  "  that  in  all  the  tenets  and  practices  of 
the  high  church  body  there  is  an  underlying  truth." 


ANGLICAN  INFLUENCES  59 

While  at  Oxford  University  he  had  come  into  connection 
with  its  most  prominent  representatives.  He  must  have 
heard  Newman  at  St.  Mary's,  and  could  not  have  failed 
to  be  impressed  with  his  intellectual  brilHancy  and  re- 
ligious intensity,  although  he  could  not  accept  the 
"  forms  of  statement "  in  which  they  all  sought  to  express 
their  fundamental  truths.  But  when  he  came  to  apply 
his  critical  methods  and  to  state  the  truths  they  had 
formulated,  in  his  own  terms,  they  found  that  he  was  far 
removed  from  them.  In  the  last  period  of  his  career 
his  conceptions  of  God  were  modified  and  enlarged,  and 
he  found  himself  putting  the  ubiquitous  presence  of 
God  over  against  the  high  churchman's  localized  deity, 
and  balancing  a  pantheistic  pervasiveness  against  an 
anthropomorphic  personality.  The  conceptions  of  the 
church  and  of  the  sacraments  also  which  prevailed  in 
this  party  were  too  narrow  for  him,  and  he  refused  to 
ally  himself  with  them.  Moreover,  his  sense  of  reality 
revolted  against  their  effort  "  to  represent  the  piety  of 
the  past  through  the  forms  of  the  past,  instead  of  striv- 
ing, like  true  prophets,  to  interpret  the  aspirations  of  the 
present  in  forms  that  truly  represent  and  foster  them," 
On  the  emotional  and  affectional  and  measurably  on 
the  practical  side  of  his  nature,  as  well  as  by  early  edu- 
cation and  association,  he  was  allied  with  the  so-called 
Evangelical  branch  of  the  church.  Like  Newman,  he, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  nurtured  in  an  Evangelical  atmos- 
phere. During  his  university  course,  from  1837  to  1840, 
although  to  a  certain  extent  influenced  by  the  Anglican 
movement,  he  was  still  regarded  as  a  low  churchman, 
and  there  is  no  evidence  that  his  religious  or  theologi- 
cal views  underwent  any  material  change.     In  his  first 


6o         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ministry  of  two  years  at  Winchester,  from  1840  to  1842, 
and  during  his  ministry  of  the  five  following  years  at 
Cheltenham,  he  was  also  regarded  as  a  low  churchman. 
His  preaching  was  for  the  most  part  of  the  pronounced 
Evangelical  type,  using  the  term  Evangelical  in  its 
ecclesiastical  sense,  although  it  may  be  questionable 
whether  it  was  more  Evangelical  in  the  proper  theologi- 
cal sense  than  that  of  his  Brighton  ministry.  His  aim 
was  "the  saving  of  souls,"  as  the  term  was  understood 
among  the  Evangelicals,  i.e.  the  bringing  of  men  to  a 
decision  for  Christ,  the  winning  of  them  to  a  conscious 
reHgious  Hfe,  and  to  the  fellowship  of  the  church.  In 
its  austerity,  his  piety  was  of  a  pronounced  Evangelical 
type.  It  was  mystical,  and  in  a  way  transcendental  and 
distinctively  ascetic ;  but  before  he  left  Cheltenham  a 
change  in  his  views  had  taken  place,  and  he  began  to 
recognize  himself  as  moving  in  a  larger  world  of  thought. 
The  unreality,  as  he  regarded  it,  of  the  Evangelical  type 
of  piety  was  apparently  one  of  the  influences  involved 
in  this  change.  He  detected  a  certain  pietistic  cant 
behind  the  Evangelical  phraseology,  and  he  was  con- 
vinced that  it  represented  a  great  amount  of  religious 
pretentiousness  and  of  unsound  ethical  character,  and 
his  sensitive  moral,  not  to  say  aesthetic  and  religious, 
nature  vigorously  reacted  against  it.  This,  however, 
was  only  one,  and  perhaps  the  most  trifling,  of  the 
causes  or  occasions  of  his  break  with  the  Evangelical 
school  and  of  his  subsequent  religious  and  theological 
revolution.  The  criticism  to  which  he  was  subjected  on 
account  of  his  free  utterances  in  the  pulpit,  and  a  certain 
tone  of  worldliness  and  frivolity  which  he  detected,  or 
thought   he  detected,  under  the  pietistic  cant  of  the 


ANGLICAN  INFLUENCES  6l 

Evangelicals,  may  have  still  further  intensified  his  revul- 
sion of  feeling.  And  it  is  not  altogether  unlikely  that, 
had  their  piety  been  more  genuine  and  their  type  of  re- 
ligious character  broader  and  manlier,  he  might  have 
continued  to  be  more  closely  allied  with  them  to  the  end. 

On  the  intellectual,  as  well  as  ethical,  side  of  his  nature, 
he  was  allied  with  the  broad  church  school.  It  is  note- 
worthy that,  seemingly,  so  far  as  the  records  of  his  life 
testify,  he  did  not  know  very  much  about  this  school  and 
was  not  in  close  relation  with  its  leaders. 

So  far  as  I  recall  no  special  mention  is  made  of  it 
as  a  movement  in  his  biography,  but  it  was  already  in 
existence,  and  was  a  distinct  and  most  significant  move- 
ment in  the  church  against  which  Tractarians  and  Evan- 
gehcals  alike  reacted.  In  fact,  it  was  one  of  the  chief 
incentives  to  the  Tractarian  reaction.  It  was  a  relic  in 
modified  form  of  the  earlier  Oriel  school,  of  which 
Whately  was  the  leader  and  with  which  Arnold,  and  at ' 
one  time  Newman,  was  in  a  sort  connected.  It  was  the 
school  of  Coleridge  and  the  Hares,  of  Maurice  and  Stan- 
ley and  Kingsley.  It  is  significant  of  Robertson's  in- 
dependence that  he  says  almost  nothing  about  this 
movement.  He  probably  did  not  wholly  agree  with  any 
one  of  them  in  their  conceptions  of  Christianity  and  of 
the  church.  But  in  their  general  humanistic  tendencies, 
in  their  intellectual  freedom,  their  catholicity  of  spirit, 
and  their  ecclesiastical  comprehensiveness  he  was  in 
sympathy  with  them.  In  the  partisan  sense  he  belonged  1 
to  no  particular  section  of  the  church.  In  a  way,  they 
all  contributed  to  him.  In  accounting  for  his  develop- 
ment, we  cannot  fail  to  detect  their  influence ;  for  with 
all  his  manly  independence,  he  was  responsive  to  influ- 


62         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ences  from  all  quarters,  not  the  less  from  individual 
friends  than  from  books,  that  represented  a  new  spirit 
and  suggested  a  new  and  better  method  in  theology. 
He  gathered  from  all,  yet  he  stood  alone.  He  could 
not  be  a  party  man.  He  formed  no  alliances  in  further- 
ing the  schemes  of  this  broad  school.  He  was  too  sensi- 
tively individualistic  and  independent  for  such  alHances. 
This  solitary  position,  result  partly  of  inward  and  partly 
of  outward  conditions,  while  it  was  the  necessity  and  the 
glory,  was  yet  the  sorrow,  of  his  life. 

But  it  was  singularly  tributary  to  the  persuasiveness 
and  power  of  his  preaching.  It  contributed  to  that  in- 
tensity, that  reality,  that  peculiar  penetrating,  experi- 
mental quality  that  can  come  only  from  independent 
personal  conviction.  It  was  experimental  preaching  of 
the  most  pronounced  type,  the  testimony  of  the  soul  and 
message  bearing,  intensely  subjective,  yet  anchored  to  a 
historic  basis  in  the  life  of  Christ.  There  is  no  note  of 
conventionality  about  it.  It  was  a  new  prophetic  voice 
in  the  Anglican  church,  a  voice  as  in  a  wilderness  of 
party  confusion.  It  was  the  utterance  of  a  man  who 
had  fought  his  way  through  and  out  and  beyond  party 
lines,  who  was  willing  to  stand  alone  and  was  able  to  do 
it,  and  who  spake  what  he  felt  in  the  deepmost  soul  of 
him.  He  spake  the  things  he  had  seen  and  heard  and 
felt,  and  there  was  consequently  a  tremendous  power  in 
what  he  said. 

4.  We  have  seen  that  the  agencies  which  wrought  in 
Robertson's  general  change  of  religious  and  ethical  ex- 
perience, and  in  his  change  of  theological  position,  are 
somewhat  occult  and  difficult  to  trace.  Perhaps  they 
were  not  fully  known  even  to  himself,  and   therefore 


PHILOSOPHIC  INFLUENCES  63 

could  not  be  known  to  those  about  him.  This  seems  to 
be  particularly  true  of  those  influences,  whatever  they 
may  have  been,  that  wrought  a  change  in  the  philo- 
sophical basis  of  his  beliefs.  All  such  changes  are 
likely  to  come  gradually,  and  the  process  is  likely  to 
be  obscure.  Without  doubt,  in  his  case,  the  transfor- 
mation was  more  gradual  and  inward  and  silent  than 
appears  at  the  surface  of  his  life,  although  the  culmina- 
tion was  rapid  and  seems  to  have  been  limited  to  the 
course  of  a  few  months,  after  which  he  emerged  into  a 
new  and  singularly  sudden  consciousness  of  power,  and 
his  growth,  thence  onward,  is  marvellous.  It  is  evident 
also  that  a  basis  for  the  change  cannot  be  traced  back 
to  his  university  days.  At  Oxford  he  was  a  careful 
and  accurate  student,  and  became  somewhat  familiar 
with  Plato  and  Aristotle.  But  his  student  life  was 
somewhat  miscellaneous,  and,  according  to  his  own  ac- 
knowledgment, lacked  concentration.  He  left  the  uni- 
versity, apparently,  without  any  thorough  grounding  in 
modern  philosophic  thought;  and  his  theology,  as  re- 
gards its  philosophic  basis,  seems  to  have  been  of  the 
traditional  sort.  It  is  altogether  likely  that  we  might 
trace  the  beginnings  of  his  ultimate  change  to  the 
literature  with  which  he  became  familiar,  and  which 
became  the  medium  for  interpreting  to  him  new  philo- 
sophic conceptions.  A  modification  in  the  ethical  char- 
acter of  his  religious  experiences  was  also  doubtless  a 
conditioning  factor  in  the  intellectual  revolution ;  but, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  genesis  of  the  change,  ulti- 
mate modified  philosophical  conceptions  of  Christianity 
become  manifest,  and  it  is  altogether  unlikely  that  a 
man  of  Robertson's  penetration  should  never  have  rec- 


64         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ognized  this  change  of  philosophic  basis  and  never  have 
given  an  account  of  it  to  himself.  It  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  a  new  idealistic  and  spiritualistic  philosophy- 
was  becoming  current,  and  thinking  men,  in  a  great 
variety  of  ways,  were  becoming  subject  to  it  and  largely 
through  the  new  literary  spirit  of  the  time.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  note  how  silently  fundamental  changes  in 
thought  are  effected.  It  was  some  time  after  Kant's 
death  that  his  works  were  translated  into  English. 
It  was  almost  a  half-century  after  Schleiermacher's 
death  before  his  **  Discourses  on  Religion  "  were  given 
to  the  English  public,  but  the  results  of  Kant's  philo- 
sophic criticism  and  of  Schleiermacher's  "  Discourses  " 
were  already  manifest  in  English  thought,  and  Robert- 
son in  England  and  Bushnell  in  this  country  disclosed 
the  traces  of  this  influence.  Coleridge's  "  Aids  to  Re- 
flection," published  in  1825,  embodied  the  results  of  his 
investigation  of  German  philosophy  and  became  a  fruit- 
ful source  of  influence.  His  philosophical  idealism, 
which  may  be  called  a  combination  of  the  ethical  ideal- 
ism of  Kant  and  the  rehgious  idealism  of  Schleier- 
macher,  directly  or  indirectly  influenced  Robertson. 
From  Robertson's  published  works  it  becomes  evi- 
dent that  he  was  familiar  with  some  of  Coleridge's 
philosophical  positions,  especially  with  his  theory  of 
religious  knowledge.  In  his  ever  recurring  declara- 
tion that  religious  truth  **  is  felt,  not  reasoned  out,"  we 
note  the  influence  of  the  idealistic  philosophy.  We  find 
also  a  changed  conception  of  the  immanence  of  God  in 
the  universe,  and  especially  in  humanity  and  in  the 
individual  soul.  And  here  it  is  not  unlikely  that  we 
may   trace   an   influence    from    Carlyle.      For   it   was 


PHILOSOPHIC  INFLUENCES  65 

Carlyle's  message  to  the  world  that  religion  is  the  intui- 
tion of  the  divine  in  the  universe.  Robertson,  in  one  of 
his  letters,  criticises  Carlyle's  tendency  to  pantheism,  or 
the  tendency  to  find  "the  divine  everywhere  and  to 
make  little  distinction  between  the  amount  of  divinity 
which  is  contained  in  different  forces,  provided  only 
that  they  be  Force."  But  he  is  at  one  with  Carlyle  in 
his  general  conception  of  religion,  and  in  Robertson  we 
detect  the  ethical  idealism,  the  hatred  of  sham,  and  the 
respect  for  hard,  honest  work  that  characterized  Car- 
lyle. It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  influence  of  Carlyle's 
literary  Romanticism  was  even  more  potent  with  him 
than  the  philosophical  idealism  of  Coleridge.  But 
whatever  we  may  conclude  as  to  this  matter,  it  is  per- 
fectly clear  that  Robertson's  change  of  theological 
views  was  connected  with  changed  philosophical  con- 
ceptions. The  fundamental  change  was  in  his  concep- 
tion of  God's  relation  to  the  universe.  With  this  was 
connected  a  modification  in  his  conception  of  the  way 
in  which  the  soul  comes  to  a  knowledge  of  God  and  of 
divine  realities,  thus  securing  to  him  a  more  spiritual 
theory  of  religious  knowledge.  With  this  was  included 
a  broadening  of  his  conception  of  BibHcal  inspiration, 
as  involving  that  action  of  God  within  the  soul  by 
which  it  becomes  able  to  recognize  religious  principles 
of  universal  validity.  With  new  recognition  of  the 
soul  in  the  totality  of  its  powers  as  the  organ  of  reli- 
gious knowledge,  and  with  new  recognition  of  the  self- 
evidencing  power  of  Christianity  in  the  experiences  of 
the  soul,  came  a  modification  in  his  conception  of  the 
validating  force  of  miracles.  "  I  hold,"  he  says,  "  that 
the  attempt  to  rest  Christianity  upon  miracles,  and  the 


66         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

fulfilments  of  prophecy,  is  essentially  the  vilest  rational- 
ism." With  his  changed  conceptions  of  God's  relation 
to  the  world,  it  is  natural  that  the  incarnation  should 
become  central  in  his  Christology  and  soteriology,  and 
that  his  conception  of  the  atonement  should  have  been 
modified.  And  his  conception  of  the  church  and  of  the 
sacraments  is  in  line  with  his  fundamental  conception 
of  the  character  of  God,  of  the  mission  and  work  of 
Christ,  and  of  man  as  the  child  of  God. 

5.  The  influence  upon  Robertson  of  modern  litera- 
ture has  already  been  referred  to.  Especially  to  be 
recognized  is  the  influence  of  the  great  modern  poets, 
Wordsworth  and  Tennyson.  He  possessed  the  artistic 
temperament  in  a  high  degree,  and  from  an  early  age 
was  strongly  impressed  by  all  the  artistic  forms  in  which 
truth  is  expressed.  Science,  and  especially  physical 
science,  met  the  needs  of  his  intellectual  life.  In  it  he 
found  relief  "  from  the  dim  religious  Hght  of  theology, 
in  which  one  seems  to  make  out  the  outline  of  a  truth, 
and  the  next  moment  lose  it  in  hopeless  mystery  and 
shadows."  But  truth  in  artistic  forms  was  his  great  joy, 
for  these  forms  "feed  the  heart."  He  regards  poetry 
and  religion  as  in  close  alliance  because  "the  laws  of 
both  are  the  same,  and  the  organ  of  both  intuition,  and 
both  satisfy  the  needs  of  the  heart."  Therefore,  in  his 
maturer  years,  he  studied  theology  almost  wholly  in  the 
forms  of  literary  expression,  rather  than  in  its  scientific 
forms.  It  was  Wordsworth,  especially,  who  realized  his 
highest  ideal  of  a  poet,  and  of  the  man  who,  as  poet,  is 
also  the  prophet  of  the  soul.  As  regards  his  knowledge 
of  Wordsworth,  he  thinks  himself  competent  to  say  of 
him  what  "  should  be  heard  by  his  fellow-men,"  because 


LITERARY   INFLUENCES  67 

he  "  has  for  years  studied  Wordsworth,  and  loved  him, 
and  year  by  year  felt  his  appreciation  and  comprehen- 
sion of  Wordsworth  grow,  and  has  during  all  those 
years  endeavored  to  make  Wordsworth's  principles  the 
guiding  principles  of  his  own  inner  life."  He  finds 
much  theology  in  his  poetry.  He  especially  finds  in 
him  the  harmonizing  of  the  seeming  contradiction 
between  the  quasi-pantheistic  conception  of  the  divine 
immanence  and  the  theistic  conception  of  the  divine 
personality.  As  poet,  Wordsworth  was  pantheistic;  as 
a  Christian,  he  was  theistic.  He  found  the  divine  every- 
where ;  he  also  found  the  divine  in  specific  and  determi- 
nate localities;  hence  he  can  be  a  high  churchman, 
and  at  the  same  time  can  maintain  the  essential 
sacredness  of  all  forms  of  existence.  And  Robertson, 
with  his  genius  for  comprehension,  defends  the  seeming 
contradiction  as  embracing  a  higher  truth.  The  subjec- 
tive and  idealistic  quahty  of  modern  Hterature  found 
response  in  his  own  subjective  and  idealistic  tendencies. 
He  recognizes  the  truth  of  Schlegel's  distinction  between 
ancient  and  modern  poetry,  viz.  that  "  the  characteristic 
of  the  former  is  satisfaction,  that  of  the  latter  aspiration." 
Therefore,  he  could  even  tolerate  Byron  and  Shelley. 
It  is  this  note  of  self-consciousness,  of  struggle,  of 
aspiration  for  the  unattained  ideal  that  found  him,  and 
the  influence  of  this  poetic  expression  of  human  aspira- 
tion is  seen  in  all  his  culture,  in  all  his  preaching,  in  all 
forms  of  his  literary  activity,  and  in  his  whole  life.  It 
expressed  what  was  most  real  to  himself.  But  in 
Wordsworth,  especially,  he  found  tranquillity  as  well  as 
quickening  of  aspiration.  Wordsworth's  peacefulness 
calmed  his  turbulent  soul,  and  he  found  relief  from  the 


68         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

storm  and  stress  of  life  in  this  refreshing  realm.  And 
for  something  the  same  reason  he  turned  to  the  fresh 
objective,  descriptive  mind  of  Sir  Walter,  for  there  **  was 
no  morbid  spot  in  that  strong,  manly  heart  and  nature," 
and  he  is  "the  most  healthful  restorative  of  any." 

In  this  realm  of  tranquillity  he  trained  his  imagina- 
tion to  work  and  calmed  his  turbulent  emotions,  and  all 
this  commerce  with  poetic  forms,  whether  as  stimulus 
or  sedative,  heightened  the  prophetic  quality  of  his 
preaching.  He  lived  a  lonely  life.  One  suspects,  and 
indeed  hears,  of  an  unrealized  domestic  ideal,  and  he 
was  the  victim  of  such  distempers  as  a  highly  sensitive, 
intense,  overwrought  organization  is  exposed  to.  Hence 
the  tremendous  earnestness,  the  almost  preternatural 
intensity,  the  sometimes  depressingly  sad  and  solemn 
impressiveness  of  his  utterance.  He  threw  all  the 
great  emotions  that  were  stirred  within  him  by  the  politi- 
cal and  social  agitations  of  his  time,  by  the  conflicts 
of  the  church,  by  the  opposition  to  which  he  was  sub- 
ject, by  his  lonely  life,  by  the  kindlings  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  the  quickenings  of  aspiration,  in  his  high 
poetic  world,  by  sympathy  with  the  "  man  of  sorrows," 
whose  pains  had  penetrated  his  soul,  into  his  preaching ; 
and  with  all  the  comforts  of  literary  fellowship,  all  the 
solace  of  friendship,  all  the  grace  of  his  Master,  it  was 
more  than  the  mortal  frame  could  bear.  He  saved  his 
life  for  other  generations,  but  he  lost  it  in  saving  it.  He 
did  not  know  how  well  he  wrought.  He  did  not  know 
the  full  import,  reach,  or  measure  of  his  prophetic  utter- 
ance. He  did  not  know  how  deeply  he  spoke  into  the 
lives  of  men.  Never  was  man  more  unconscious  of 
what  he  was  doing  for  others,  for  the  church,  for  the 


DISTINCTIVE   QUALITIES   IN   PREACHING  69 

world,  ultimately  for  himself.  It  was  in  much  a  sad 
history,  but  most  precious  for  the  multitudes  of  needy 
men  whom  he  has  helped.  More  fully  than  any  other 
EngUsh  preacher  of  his  century  has  he  spoken  the 
true  prophetic  word  for  hungry  and  disquieted  human 
hearts.  In  our  effort  to  interpret  him,  we  may  not  for- 
get his  identification  of  poetry  and  religion,  nor  his 
poetic  and  religious  interpretation  of  human  life. 


II 

THE  DISTINCTIVE   QUALITIES   IN   ROBERTSON'S 
PREACHING 

What  is  distinctive  in  his  preaching  may  perhaps  be 
made  apparent  in  an  attempt  to  point  out  what  is  most 
helpful  and  impressive  in  it. 

I.  Perhaps  the  first  thing  that  arrests  our  attention  is 
the  distinctively  Biblical  quality  of  his  preaching.  He 
illustrates  most  suggestively  the  value  of  Biblical 
preaching,  demonstrates  the  fruitfulness  of  Biblical 
study  for  homiletic  use,  furnishes  the  most  attractive 
model  of  an  effective  Biblical  method,  and  has  exerted 
an  important  influence  upon  the  best  Biblical  preaching 
of  our  day.  The  foundation  was  early  laid,  and  it  be- 
came his  chosen  and  only  method.  At  the  university 
"  he  took  special  delight  in  Scriptural  and  Greek  Testa- 
ment readings."  "  He  literally  learned  by  heart  the 
whole  of  the  New  Testament,  not  only  in  English,  but 
in  Greek."  "  His  love  for  the  Holy  Bible  was  exceed- 
ingly remarkable,  and  especially  for  those  parts  that 
are  full  of  Christ."     His  inclination  and  his  training, 


70         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

therefore,  both  drew  him  from  the  first  to  this  type  of 
preaching.  At  Winchester  his  preaching  was,  in  the 
substance  of  its  thought,  doctrinal  after  the  Calvinistic 
type  of  the  Evangelicals,  but  it  was  Biblical  in  form. 
He  was  a  careful  student,  devoting  the  morning  hour  to 
study,  "  getting  up  early  and  eating  almost  no  breakfast 
in  order  to  apply  himself  to  his  work.  He  chiefly  at 
that  time  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  Hebrew,  and 
Biblical  criticism,  though  he  read  all  sorts  of  books." 
"  He  was  no  contemptible  scholar,"  and  "  of  general 
information  he  had  a  large  store."  All  this  became 
available  in  his  Biblical  expositions.  At  Cheltenham, 
his  doctrinal  beliefs,  as  we  have  seen,  began  to  modify, 
and  this  somewhat  affected  the  substance,  but  not  the 
form,  of  his  preaching.  The  best  type  of  his  preaching, 
however,  both  as  to  substance  and  form,  is  seen  in  his 
Brighton  ministry.  Here  his  unique  skill  as  an  inter- 
preter of  Biblical  truth,  and  of  human  life  in  the  light 
of  that  truth,  reaches  its  supremacy.  In  his  sermon  on 
the  "  Illusiveness  of  Life  "  he  suggests  his  own  concep- 
tion of  the  preacher's  work.  "  The  very  essence  of  it  is 
to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man  —  to  interpret  God." 
His  letters  also,  profoundly  interesting  in  their  simplicity, 
perspicuity,  freshness,  and  grace  of  diction,  indicate  how 
thoroughly  familiar  his  mind  was  with  Biblical  truth. 
We  detect  his  habits  of  Biblical  study,  not  only  in  his 
expository  discourses  upon  the  books  of  the  Bible,  in 
which  he  alternated  between  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments, but  in  his  discourses  from  isolated  texts.  He 
wrought  the  results  of  this  study  into  his  Sunday- 
school  work,  especially  into  the  instruction  given  his 
teachers.     His  catechetical  work  had  a  Biblical  rather 


BIBLICAL   QUALITY  71 

than  a  dogmatical  or  ecclesiastical  quality,  and  his  large 
confirmation  classes  attest,  not  only  his  pastoral  zeal,  but 
his  attractiveness  as  a  teacher.  He  availed  himself  of 
the  expository  method,  as  a  wise  homiletic  and  pastoral 
device,  in  getting  difficult  and  offensive  themes  before 
his  congregation.  A  result  of  this  Biblical  habit  of 
mind  was  that  his  ordinary  preaching  always  took  the 
textual  form.  It  was  very  likely  the  method  in  which 
he,  in  his  associations  with  the  Evangelical  preachers  of 
the  church,  had  become  familiar,  but  he  greatly  improved 
upon  the  method.  No  textual  preaching  of  his  day,  and 
none  since,  is  comparable  with  Robertson's  in  freshness, 
suggestiveness,  and  forcefulness.  His  preaching  shows 
how  thoroughly  he  had  grasped  the  homiletic  signifi- 
cance and  value  of  the  Bible,  and  it  demonstrates  how 
fully  he  understood  the  importance  of  historic  religion 
as  interpreted  through  experience,  for  the  practical  lives 
of  men,  notwithstanding  his  brilliant  speculative  and 
dialectical  abilities,  and  his  possibilities  thereby,  for  the 
most  effective  type  of  topical  preaching. 

Let  us  now  note  some  of  the  prominent  features  of 
this  Biblical  quality  in  his  preaching. 

(i)  And  first,  his  grasp  of  the  historic  sense.  He 
must  know  first  of  all,  and  so  must  his  hearers  know, 
the  expHcit  thought  as  it  lay  in  the  mind  of  the  Biblical 
writer.  This  historic  sense  is  always  present  as  ground- 
work. Hence  his  Scripture  passage  is  always  held  in  its 
contextual  relations.  His  expository  discourses  espe- 
cially, as  for  example  those  on  the  Corinthian  letters, 
the  exposition  of  the  last  chapter  of  which  closed  his 
earthly  ministry,  show  how  well  he  had  mastered  the 
whole   situation,  how  well  he  understood   the   historic 


72    REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

conditions,  and  how  wide-reaching  was  his  grasp  of  the 
whole  course  of  thought  and  how  clear  his  conception 
of  the  experiences  in  Paul's  life  that  furnish  a  back- 
ground for  these  letters. 

(2)  His  penetration  into  the  inner  suggestiveness  of 
his  texts.  He  gets  down  under  them,  sinks  himself  into 
them,  and  throws  up  into  the  light  what  Hes  hidden 
there.  He  combined  these  two  requisites  in  all  success- 
ful BibHcal  preaching,  viz.  definite  comprehension  of 
the  historic  sense,  and  skill  in  detaching  its  inner  ethical 
and  spiritual  suggestiveness.  Defective  preaching  of 
the  Biblical  type  has  always  disclosed  a  failure  in  one 
or  the  other  of  these  conditions.  Robertson's  preaching 
combines  duly  the  historic  and  the  suggestive,  the 
literal  and  the  poetic,  truth  for  the  understanding  and 
truth  for  the  imagination,  fact  for  our  sense  of  reality, 
and  principle  for  our  practical  guidance.  The  his- 
toric, however,  appears  only  as  the  background  and 
base  of  his  procedure.  He  had  what  Rothe,  speak- 
ing of  Augustine,  calls  "  exegetical  divination,"  by  which 
he  means  power  of  insight  into  the  ethical  and  spiritual 
suggestiveness  of  the  Scriptures,  and  which  may  be 
called  as  well,  indeed  more  appropriately,  homiletic 
divination.  He  seizes  the  inner  suggestiveness  of  his 
passage  as  by  a  kind  of  inspiration.  "  He  did  not," 
says  his  biographer,  *'  choose  his  text  in  order  to  bring  a 
doctrine  out  of  it,  but  he  penetrated  to  its  centre  and 
seized  the  principle  it  contains.  It  was  the  kernel,  not 
the  shell,  for  which  he  cared."  This  penetrating  and 
suggestive  quality  is  seen  in  the  light  he  throws  upon 
his  texts  in  the  broad  processes  of  his  discussion.  He 
cultivated  his  imagination  and  his  sympathies,  and  these 


BIBLICAL  QUALITY  73 

two  qualities  were  greatly  conducive  to  his  suggestiveness 
as  a  Biblical  preacher.  His  mind  acted  spontaneously 
and  intuitively.  He  was,  indeed,  as  already  suggested, 
strong  in  dialectic,  he  was  a  master  in  subtle  reasoning ; 
but  imaginative  insight  was  his  most  marked  intellectual 
gift.     It  was  preeminently  the  gift  of  the  interpreter. 

The  best  interpreter  in  any  field  of  knowledge  is  the 
man  who  combines  patient  investigation  and  ratiocinative 
skill  with  that  sharpness  of  insight  which  is  often  only 
a  happy  guess  of  the  imagination.  The  best  interpreter 
of  religious  truth,  and  so  far  forth  the  best  preacher, 
is  the  man  who  combines  exegetical  analysis  with  that 
sharpness  of  insight  which  is  the  gift  of  a  trained  imag- 
ination. Facts  or  truths  are  of  but  little  significance 
or  value  without  ability  to  detect  their  inner  meaning. 
With  a  trained  imagination,  Robertson  combined  trained 
sympathies.  He  had  a  most  deHcate  sense  of  ethical 
and  spiritual  realities,  because  he  approached  them 
through  his  sympathies.  It  is  his  conviction,  very  fre- 
quently expressed,  that  without  the  capacity  of  sympa- 
thy, spiritual  truth  cannot  be  interpreted,  as  it  cannot 
be  apprehended.  It  is  especially  true  that  without 
it  the  character  and  life  of  Christ  cannot  be  under- 
stood nor  successfully  presented.  His  vivid  apprehen- 
sion of  Christ,  his  delicate  sympathy  with  him,  and  his 
skill  and  persuasiveness  in  interpreting  Christ's  char- 
acter and  Ufe  illustrate  this.  **  He  had,"  says  his  biog- 
rapher, "  spent  a  world  of  study,  of  reverent  meditation, 
of  adoring  contemplation,  on  the  gospel  history."  To  a 
friend,  two  years  before  his  death,  he  gave  this  counsel, 
and  it  suggests  the  habit  of  his  life.  "  Receive,  imbibe, 
and  then  your  mind  will  create.     Poets  are   creators 


74         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

because  recipients.  They  open  their  hearts  to  Nature, 
instead  of  going  to  her  with  views  of  her  already  made 
and  second-hand ;  so  with  Scripture,  —  patient,  quiet, 
long,  revering  listening  to  it;  then  suggestiveness." 

It  is  this  quality  of  insight  that  enables  him  to  grasp 
the  underrunning  principles  of  Biblical  revelation.  He 
has  great  skill  in  applying  these  principles.  In  his 
hands  particular  truths  acquire  new  significance  by 
reason  of  their  vital  relation  to  general  truths.  We 
discover  the  inner  meaning  of  the  specific  truth  in  the 
light  of  the  larger  truth  that  is  brought  to  bear  upon  it. 
He  was  confident  that  in  his  preaching  he  had  got  at 
what  was  fundamental.  He  speaks  with  confidence  in 
one  of  his  letters  of  having  mastered  Paul's  **root 
thoughts."  He  sought  what  was  fundamental  in  the 
character  and  life  of  Christ.  No  modern  preacher  has 
been  more  successful  in  finding  the  centre  of  this  char- 
acter and  life  or  in  making  the  discovery  of  it  the  key- 
note of  his  preaching.  He  felt  that  he  had  struck 
bottom.  And  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  his  new, 
clear  vision,  and  his  quickened  and  expanded  sense  of 
the  significance  of  Christ  for  his  own  and  for  all  human 
life,  was  one  of  the  influences  that  wrought  in  the  change 
of  his  theological  views.  He  found  that  the  doctrinal 
standards  of  his  church  did  not  harmonize  with  his 
broadened  conceptions  of  Christianity,  and  that  they 
did  not  stand  the  test  of  broader  Biblical  criticism.  He 
was  driven  back  the  more  centrally  and  fundamentally 
to  historic  Christianity,  as  he  found  himself  relaxing 
his  hold  upon  the  doctrines  of  his  church.  He  found 
himself  forced  to  look  for  fundamental  principles, 
and  when  he  had   found  them  his  pulpit  power  was 


BIBLICAL   QUALITY  75 

doubled.  The  contrast,  not  so  much  in  form  as  in 
substance,  between  his  earlier  and  later  preaching,  is 
notable,  and  has  been  a  matter  of  frequent  comment. 
He  felt  at  last  that  his  feet  were  upon  the  rock,  and 
it  is  because  of  this  experience  that  Robertson  became 
the  most  comprehensive,  forceful,  and  persuasive  inter- 
preter of  Christ  and  of  all  human  life  in  the  light  of  his 
person,  character,  and  work  in  his  century.  Other 
preachers  have  brought  human  life  to  the  interpreta- 
tion of  Christianity.  He  would  bring  Christianity  to 
the  interpretation  of  life.  Other  men  have  been  stu- 
dents of  humanity,  and  have  found  its  best  experi- 
ences, even  its  common  experiences,  even  its  experiences 
of  sin  and  suffering,  vindications  and  verifications  of 
Christian  truth.  Robertson  was  indeed  a  student  of 
life  and  of  men,  but  he  was  first  of  all  a  student 
of  Christian  revelation,  a  student  of  ideal  humanity  as 
it  exists  in  Christ,  and  he  finds  here  the  realization  and 
the  interpretation  of  all  that  is  truly  human.  The  mes- 
sage of  Phillips  Brooks  to  the  world  is  this :  Religion 
is  human,  religion  is  truly  natural.  Know  yourself  in 
your  deepest  needs ;  know  the  deepmost  significance 
of  your  own  experiences ;  know  the  world  in  its  deep- 
est principles;  get  at  its  deepest  meaning;  interpret 
yourself  and  interpret  the  world  aright,  —  and  then  you 
will  know  Christ,  you  will  find  an  echo  and  a  vindica- 
tion of  His  revelation  to  your  soul.  On  the  other  hand, 
Robertson's  message  was.  Know  the  deepest  inner 
meaning  of  the  life  of  Christ ;  know  it  as  containing  the 
root  principles  of  all  human  life,  then  you  will  have  the 
key  to  your  own  human  experiences,  the  key  to  all  truly 
human  life. 


76    REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

(3)  We  are  thus  brought  to  consider  briefly  Robert- 
son's skill  in  applying  to  ethical  and  spiritual  needs  the 
content  of  Biblical  truth.  He  had  far  more  than  the 
ordinary  mental  and  moral  impulse,  which  every  genuine 
preacher  must  have,  to  reach  out  into  the  lives  of  his 
fellow-men  and  to  apply  the  truth  to  their  practical 
necessities.  He  was  a  diligent  student  of  his  age,  and 
he  sought  to  apply  the  principles  of  Christianity  to  its 
special  wants.  He  was  strongly  moved  by  the  political, 
ecclesiastical,  scientific,  economic,  social,  and  philan- 
thropic questions  that  were  in  agitation  at  the  time  of 
his  appearance  in  public  life.  The  democratic  spirit 
that  has  since  made  such  head  in  England  and  has 
exerted  so  powerful  an  influence  in  pubHc  life  was 
making  itself  felt  in  many  ways.  The  conflict  in  the 
church,  that  resulted  in  Newman's  break  with  it,  was 
at  its  height  when  he  took  orders.  Scientific  theories 
were  challenging  the  truth  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
church.  Carlyle  was  prodding  the  sluggish  EngHsh 
public  and  rallying  them  to  action  with  respect  to  the 
problems  of  poverty.  Maurice  and  Kingsley  were 
engaged  in  pushing  their  schemes  of  Christian  social- 
ism. Robertson  was  profoundly  impressed  and  in- 
fluenced by  all  this.  He  gained  a  powerful  ascendency 
over  the  working-men  of  Brighton,  and  he  interpreted 
Christianity  to  men  of  wealth  with  rare  skill  and  balance 
of  judgment.  He  was  a  student  of  social  and  economic 
conditions  and  problems,  and  applied  the  truths  of 
Christianity  and  the  spirit  of  Christian  morality  to  them 
with  great  discretion  and  effectiveness.  He  was  a 
student  of  physical  science  and  of  Biblical  revelation 


BIBLICAL  QUALITY  77 

as  related  to  scientific  problems,  and  he  brought  the 
results  of  his  studies  to  his  people  in  expository  dis- 
courses upon  the  Book  of  Genesis.  He  was  a  student 
of  his  church,  and  he  brought  his  regulative  conceptions 
of  Christianity  to  bear  upon  the  church  problems  of  his 
time.  He  studied  the  political  questions  of  his  day, 
sharing  in  large  measure  the  democratic  spirit  that 
was  gaining  ascendency,  and  applying  the  principles 
of  Biblical  revelation  to  those  problems  of  govern- 
ment that  were  stirring  the  minds  of  men,  the  con- 
crete results  of  which  appeared  in  his  expository 
lectures  upon  the  Books  of  Samuel.  He  grasped  the 
fundamental  principles  of  all  these  problems,  bring- 
ing them  into  relation  with  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  Christianity,  and  became  the  most  skilful 
interpreter  of  Christian  morality,  as  applied  to  the 
problems  of  associate  human  life,  of  any  preacher  of 
his  day. 

(4)  In  the  formal  as  well  as  material  aspects  of  his 
preaching,  that  is,  in  the  organizing  of  the  material 
of  the  sermon,  we  find  the  prevaiHng  Biblical  quahty. 
In  a  word,  it  is  always  the  textual  method.  In  his 
choice  of  a  text,  he  prefers  more  than  a  single  isolated 
passage.  The  topical  preacher  who  abandons  the  text 
in  his  discussion  of  the  theme  needs  but  a  single 
passage.  But  the  textual  preacher  will  not  isolate 
his  passage.  He  will  relate  its  elements  in  his  dis- 
cussion. Contrast,  in  this  regard,  Robertson  with 
Brooks.  The  Biblical  quality  of  Robertson's  introduc- 
tory approach  to  his  discussion  is  seen  in  its  explana- 
tory character. 


y^         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

The  object  is  so  to  deal  with  the  Biblical  material  of 
the  text  as  to  clear  the  way  for  the  discussion.  At  one 
time  it  is  a  contextual  explanation,  disclosing  the  inner 
connection  of  thought  and  holding  it  in  continuity. 
At  another  time  it  is  verbal  explanation,  interpreting 
the  meaning  of  stress  words.  Now  it  is  the  principle 
of  contrast  that  is  introduced  for  the  purpose  of  height- 
ening the  significance  of  the  truth  in  hand.  Again  the 
approach  is  through  some  hedge  of  difficulty  that  must 
be  cleared  away  before  a  path  can  be  opened  to  the  dis- 
cussion. Sometimes  our  attention  is  directed  to  the 
importance  of  the  truth  suggested,  and  the  proper 
method  of  treatment  is  pointed  out.  But  whatever  be 
the  method  of  approach,  the  text  is  the  point  of  depar- 
ture, and  the  substance  of  his  introductory  thought  is 
in  some  way  explanatory.  That  the  sermon  has  no 
formulated  theme  simply  indicates  that  the  content  of 
the  discussion  attaches  itself  directly  to  the  text,  and 
is  not  drawn  out  of  or  through  a  theme  that  is  assumed 
to  represent  the  substance  of  the  text.  The  topics, 
drawn  in  some  way,  in  general  directly  from  the  text, 
but  applied  liberally  in  the  way  of  accommodating  ap- 
plication, are  stated  at  the  outset,  and  restated  in  the 
process  of  discussion.  They  summarize  the  most  im- 
portant truths  of  the  text.  This  textual  habit  prevailed 
in  all  periods  of  his  preaching.  The  entire  develop- 
ment is  but  an  unfolding  of  the  content  of  the  textually 
suggested  topics.  It  is  his  chosen  process,  "  from 
within  outward."  This  was  a  fundamental  homiletic 
principle,  from  which  he  never  varied.  Thus  he  un- 
folded Biblical  truths  as  an  interpreter,  and  was  on 
principle,  therefore,  a  textual  preacher.    First,  interpret 


EDIFYING   QUALITY  79 

the  inner  significance  of  the  truth  that  is  given,  then 
apply  it.  This  is  the  gist  of  his  homiletic  science. 
The  conclusion  consists  of  a  vigorous  use  of  the  truth 
discussed  with  reference  to  practical  results,  either  the 
truth  as  a  whole  or  some  deduction  from  it,  or  the 
application  of  some  of  the  most  prominent  points  of 
the  discussion,  generally  the  last.  Thus  from  text  to 
conclusion  we  have  the  Biblical  quality.  And  this  illus- 
trates his  theory  of  the  preacher's  function,  namely,  that 
he  is  an  interpreter  of  the  truth  of  revelation.  And  so 
his  preaching  has  a  prevailingly  objective  quality,  and, 
considering  his  subjective  tendencies,  it  is  the  more  sig- 
nificant that  it  should  be  so  objectively  real.  It  shows 
the  dominating  power  of  Biblical  religion ;  and  that  his 
preaching  should  be  so  suggestive  to  the  imagination 
and  so  impressive  to  the  feelings  demonstrates  at  once 
the  fruitfulness  of  the  truths  of  BibUcal  revelation,  and 
the  genius  of  the  preacher  for  making  these  truths 
supremely  attractive,  however  unattractive  they  may 
have  become  through  commonplace  handling. 

2.  Robertson's  helpfulness  as  a  thoughtful  and  edify- 
ing preacher  is  a  natural  suggestion  from  what  has 
already  been  said.  He  recognized  Christianity  as  a 
religion  that  may  and  must  be  taught.  It  is  something 
objectively  given,  not  merely  subjectively  felt.  It  is 
not  only  an  inner  experience,  but  a  historic  fact.  It  is 
to  be  interpreted,  therefore,  not  merely  as  an  expres- 
sion of  pious  feeling,  but  as  a  content  of  historic  truth. 
Christianity  is  life,  but  it  is  also  light.  It  is  the  heart 
that  appropriates  it,  but  it  is  the  mind  that  mediates  it. 
Hence  he  would  be  known  first  of  all  as  an  interpreter. 
To  nourish  life  he  would  furnish  light.     Truth  is  the 


8o         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

pabulum  of  growing  manhood.  No  preacher  of  his  day 
in  the  Anglican  church  was  comparable  with  him  in 
wealth  and  range  of  material.  There  were  more  dis- 
tinctively intellectual  preachers,  perhaps,  but  they  were 
so  much  the  less  real  preachers.  He  was  not  an 
intellectual  preacher,  either  as  to  type  or  measure, 
such  as  Mozley  was.  He  was,  indeed,  a  preacher 
for  the  more  thoughtful  and  intellectual  class  of  hearers, 
but  he  was  not  deficient  in  those  qualities  that  char- 
acterize the  popular  preacher  in  the  truest  and  best 
sense.  His  preaching  took  hold  of  the  heart  and  con- 
science, as  well  as  the  mind,  of  his  hearers.  All  of 
his  published  sermons  disclose  the  depth  and  scope  of 
his  intellectual  life  and  the  wealth  of  his  spiritual  life ; 
but  there  was  probably  an  emotional  and  ethical  in- 
tensity about  his  preaching  of  which  these  sermons, 
impressive  as  they  are,  hardly  give  us  an  adequate 
conception.  He  was  not  a  whit  the  less  practically 
effective  as  a  preacher,  that  he  was  also  an  excep- 
tionally thoughtful  preacher.  He  threw  all  of  his  fiery 
intensity  into  his  work,  and  he  profoundly  moved  his 
audience.  But  there  was  always  a  solid  basis  of  strong 
and  dignified  thought,  and  his  mental  poise  always  mas- 
tered his  emotions  and  made  them  the  more  impressive 
and  effective.  He  was  a  man  of  thorough  mental  train- 
ing. From  the  beginning  of  his  student  life  he  had  grap- 
pled valiantly  with  his  intellectual  tasks,  and  he  was 
not  satisfied  with  vague  conceptions  of  any  subject. 
He  had  a  poetic  conception  of  religion  and  was  some- 
thing of  a  mystic,  but  he  knew  that  when  the  mind  is 
brought  into  intelligent  commerce  with  religious  truth, 
it  should  yield  definite  and  apprehensible  results.     He 


EDIFYING  QUALITY  8l 

was  a  clear,  keen  thinker.  His  power  of  intellectual  dis- 
crimination and  analysis  is  most  notable.  He  not  only 
mastered  the  individual  sermon,  being  exceedingly  jeal- 
ous of  all  intrusions  during  the  sacred  hours  of  prepa- 
ration, but  he  mastered  the  theory  of  preaching.  He 
had  gradually  formed  a  comprehensive  conception  of 
the  preacher's  work  and  worked  in  the  light  of  it,  but  it 
emerged  into  a  more  definite  form  in  the  crisis  of  his 
life.  He  put  the  stamp  of  his  own  genius  upon  it,  and 
carried  it  into  effect  most  brilliantly  in  the  Brighton 
ministry.  It  is  evident  that  he  saw  from  the  first  that 
the  effectiveness  of  preaching,  for  incentive  as  well  as 
for  instruction,  will  depend  upon  orderly  method.  Even 
in  the  early  years  of  his  ministry,  before  his  intellectual 
life  had  reached  its  full  development,  he  was  excep- 
tionally methodical  in  the  ordering  of  his  thought,  and 
so  extraordinarily  clear.  He  was  willing  even  that  his 
method  should  be  stereotyped,  so  only  it  proved  to  be 
definite  and  clear.  "All  public  speakers,"  he  says, 
"  know  the  value  of  method.  Persons  not  accustomed 
to  it  imagine  that  a  speech  is  learned  by  heart.  Know- 
ing a  little  about  the  matter,  I  will  venture  to  say  if  any 
one  attempted  that  plan  either  he  must  have  a  marvel- 
lous memory,  or  else  he  would  break  down  three  times 
out  of  five.  It  simply  depends  upon  correct  arrange- 
ment. The  words  and  sentences  are  left  to  the  moment, 
the  thoughts  methodized  beforehand,  and  the  words,  if 
rightly  arranged,  will  place  themselves."  This  utter- 
ance is  biographical.  It  indicates  not  only  his  intellec- 
tual conscientiousness  in  the  work  of  preparation,  but 
it  suggests  the  secret,  in  large  measure,  of  his  remark- 
able success  as  an  extemporaneous  preacher.     It  is  the 


82  REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

discriminating  quality  of  thought  that  characterizes  the 
sermon  from  beginning  to  end.  The  process  of  analy- 
sis and  discrimination  is  one  of  his  most  characteristic 
didactic  methods.  By  the  process  of  exclusion  and  in- 
clusion he  opens  the  way  to  the  definitely  conceived 
principles  that  he  will  discuss,  and  the  entire  movement 
of  thought  has  a  corresponding  discriminatingness,  dis- 
tinctness, and  clearness,  speaking  at  once  to  the  mind 
and  with  scarcely  less  effectiveness  to  the  emotions. 

As  already  suggested,  he  states  his  topics  distinctly 
and  clearly  at  the  outset,  and,  for  the  purpose  of  aiding 
the  mental  processes  of  the  hearer,  he  restates  them  in 
the  course  of  the  discussion.  He  handles  his  subjects 
with  an  easy  mastery,  for  the  truth  comes  out  of  the 
broad  fields  of  his  study  and  reflection,  and  has  been 
excogitated  along  the  line  of  a  careful,  logical  method. 
The  whole  discussion  has  an  admirable  unity,  although 
no  comprehensive  theme  covering  the  entire  content  of 
thought  may  be  suggested,  and  although  these  sermons 
as  we  have  them  are  confessedly  fragmentary,  they  still 
have  such  completeness  and  symmetry  as  best  serve 
their  practical  purpose,  and  the  discussion  is  always 
intellectually  and  spiritually  suggestive  rather  than 
exhaustive.  He  trained  the  man,  and  the  individual 
sermon,  although  carefully  wrought  out,  was  the  product 
of  such  training.  He  had  acute  analytical  power,  as 
well  as  most  extraordinary  faciHty  of  statement,  and  his 
imagination  and  emotions  never  ran  away  with  him. 
He  was  a  student  of  the  dialectical  Aristotle,  of  the 
philosophical  and  metaphysical  Edwards,  as  well  as  of 
the  idealistic  Plato,  and  of  the  world's  great  poets,  and 
** their  writings,"  he  says,  "passed  like  the  iron  atoms 


EDIFYING   QUALITY  83 

of  the  blood  into  my  mental  constitution."  This  early 
and  continuous  intellectual  discipline  was  of  immense 
value  to  him,  especially  in  his  later  years.  When  once 
emancipated  from  what  he  regarded  as  the  early  limi- 
tations of  his  theological  thinking,  this  habit  of  mind 
stood  by  him  and  helped  him  through  the  great  intel- 
lectual and  religious  crisis  of  his  life.  He  insisted  upon 
the  formation  of  such  conceptions  of  Christianity  as 
could  be  preached,  because  they  would  be  free  from  all 
incomprehensible  vagueness. 

It  is  surprising  that  any  man  who  carried  such 
physical  infirmities  as  he  did  should  be  able  to  present 
in  extemporaneous  form  and  with  such  freedom  and 
facility,  truth  so  thoroughly  discriminated  and  so  pre- 
cisely stated.  No  man  could  have  done  it  who  was  not 
a  thoroughly  trained  man.  Robertson  demonstrates, 
therefore,  that  one  may  be  a  thoughtful  preacher  in  the 
best  sense,  and  yet  a  popular  preacher.  Common 
people,  so  called,  the  working-men  of  Brighton,  heard 
him  gladly.  He  shows  how  strong  an  influence  it  is 
possible  for  a  Christian  preacher  to  exert  upon  the 
people  of  his  time.  A  preacher  of  less  firm  mental  fibre, 
no  matter  how  fervid,  could  not  have  done  it.  He  dealt 
with  living  questions.  He  had  a  comprehensive  grasp 
of  the  main  facts  and  features  of  his  subject,  and  they 
were  presented  most  effectively  in  definite,  dignified, 
impressive,  often  intense,  and  yet  graceful  form.  He 
had  a  high  conception  of  the  dignity  and  sacredness  of 
the  pulpit,  and  he  never  made  use  of  it  for  the  purpose 
of  political,  social,  or  ecclesiastical  propagandism.  He 
interested  himself  in  living  social  and  political  subjects, 
and  he  made  both  pulpit  and  platform   a   throne  of 


84         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

power  in  the  discussion  of  them  from  the  Biblical,  or 
ethical  and  religious  point  of  view.  No  class  mourned 
for  him  when  he  died  more  sincerely  than  the  hard- 
handed  working-men  of  Brighton.  But  he  bears  witness 
that  the  pulpit  must  keep  in  line  with  the  intelligence 
of  the  age,  or  it  will  be  shorn  of  its  power.  It  is  the 
work  of  the  thoughtful,  studious  preacher  that  endures. 
3.  Robertson's  career  is  helpful  as  suggesting  the 
value  for  the  preacher  of  deep  and  varied  religious  ex- 
periences. It  is  true  that  he  had  a  special  gift  for 
religion.  His  ethical  and  spiritual  susceptibility  reached 
the  measure  of  genius.  But  this  gift  had  been  cultivated 
from  early  years,  and  his  religious  life  deepened,  enlarged, 
and  enriched  itself  in  all  varieties  of  experience.  We 
do  not  ordinarily  think  or  speak  of  Robertson  as  a  saint, 
although  the  writer  has  frequently  heard  young  English- 
men thus  designate  him.  But  if  we  do  not  regard  him 
as  a  saint,  it  is  because  we  have  learned  to  attach  an 
inadequate  significance  to  the  term.  He  was  not  a 
faultless  man.  No  saint  is  ever  faultless.  But  with  all 
his  defects,  which  were  temperamental  and  superficial, 
he  was  a  modern  saint,  and  this  saintship  was  a  moral 
and  religious  achievement.  It  was  the  conquest  of  his 
manly  conscience  and  will.  One  of  the  notable  things 
in  his  religious  experience  was  its  vitalizing  power  in 
his  intellectual  life.  He  laid  great  stress  upon  the  ex- 
perience of  the  power  of  the  truth  in  the  heart,  in  order 
that  it  may  become  a  more  real  and  vital  mental  posses- 
sion. And  this  was  a  recognized  fundamental  principle 
in  his  preaching.  A  religious  truth  was  of  no  special 
importance  as  a  mere  intellectual  possession.  He  must 
feel  its  moral  and  spiritual  power.     It  was  not  enough 


EXPERIMENTAL  QUALITY  8$ 

to  think  it  out  dearly ;  he  must  feel  it  profoundly  and, 
holding  it  as  a  possession  of  the  heart,  it  had  new  sig- 
nificance for  the  mind.  He  found  a  good  deal  of 
religious  experience,  especially  in  the  Evangelical  com- 
munion, that  did  not  seem  to  touch  the  intelligence  of 
men.  It  lingered  in  the  realm  of  feeling  or  sentiment 
or  practical  zeal.  Such  religious  experience  could  not 
produce  preachers  of  Robertson's  type.  He  knew  the 
importance  of  an  experience  that  dominates  the  intel- 
lectual life,  and  it  was  the  depth  and  compass  of  his 
own  experience  that  stood  by  him  in  the  tempests  of 
that  Hfe. 

His  religious  life  was  varied  as  well  as  profound. 
The  story  of  his  mental  and  moral  struggle,  and  the 
revolution  it  wrought  in  his  life,  is  known  to  the  world, 
and  it  may  almost  be  called  one  of  the  treasures  of  the 
modern  church.  It  is  the  story  of  a  great  triumph.  Its 
lesson  is  the  power  of  a  pure  heart,  of  a  good  conscience, 
of  a  great  piety,  to  steady  the  soul  in  the  storms  of 
doubt,  of  the  vitalizing  power  of  religion  in  the  mental 
life,  and  it  is  most  precious.  He  seemed  to  waver 
between  the  different  schools  that  touched  him,  passing 
from  the  austere  piety  of  the  Evangelicals  through  the 
high  churchliness  of  the  Tractarians  to  the  liberalism  of 
the  broad  churchmen,  but  at  bottom  he  was  stable  as  a 
rock.  During  the  Evangelical  experiences  of  his  early 
ministry,  he  led  an  unworldly,  even  an  ascetic  life,  yet  he 
was  as  saintly  in  the  later  breadth,  as  in  the  earlier 
limitations  of  his  piety.  He  fasted  often.  He  prayed 
long  and  strivingly.  He  read  religious  biography.  He 
labored  for  the  conversion  of  souls.  He  "  was  in  the  reg- 
ular habit  of  reading  daily,  with  scrupulous  adherence 


86         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

to  a  plan,  the  works  of  eminently  holy  persons,  whose 
tone  was  not  merely  uprightness  of  character  and  high- 
mindedness,  but  communion  —  a  strong  sense  of  personal 
and  even  living  communion  —  with  God  besides."  In 
later  years  he  recalls  "  how  far  more  peaceful "  his  mind 
used  to  be  at  that  time  in  connection  with  this  habit  of 
life,  and  he  resumes  the  habit,  but  under  changed  con- 
ditions. The  experience,  however,  was  too  narrow  for 
him.  In  his  delicate  ethical  sensitiveness,  he  suspected 
that  his  moral  life  did  not  correspond  with  nor  justify 
his  emotional  life.  His  intellectual  struggles  brought 
him  into  a  large  place,  where  his  larger  mental,  ethical, 
and  spiritual  wants  were  more  fully  met,  and  where  his 
free  nature  had  broader  range.  These  experiences  illus- 
trate, not  only  the  staying  power  of  piety,  as  we  have 
seen  also  in  the  case  of  Schleiermacher,  and  its  vitalizing 
energy  in  the  mind's  commerce  with  truth,  but  the 
anchorage  ground  that  is  furnished  by  the  moral  factor 
in  religious  experience.  And  in  all  these  aspects  the 
experiences  of  Robertson  and  Bushnell  were  similar. 
It  was  this  variety  of  his  experience  also  that  fitted 
Robertson  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  truth  in 
conflicting  parties  and  in  diverse  statements  thereof, 
and  thus  he  became  a  mediator.  No  modern  preacher 
has  seen  more  clearly  the  truth  that  lingers  beneath  the 
forms  of  error,  the  good  that  is  hidden  under  the  forms 
of  evil,  and  the  higher  unity  that  embraces  all  the 
seeming  contradictions  of  truth. 

It  was  this  breadth  of  experience  that  gave  him  touch- 
ing-points with  men  of  different  schools,  liberated  and 
liberalized  his  mind  and  heart,  made  it  possible  for  him  to 
receive  truth  from  men  as  diverse  in  theological  opinion 


PERSONAL   QUALITY  8/ 

as  Channing  and  Newman,  and  that  gave  him,  in  the 
catholicity  of  his  spirit,  a  most  commanding  place  in  the 
modern  pulpit.  It  may  not  be  appointed  to  every 
minister,  nor  may  it  be  possible  or  necessary,  to  pass 
through  such  experiences  as  those  of  Robertson.  But 
no  man  who  is  called  to  it  and  is  as  true  to  his  own  in- 
telligence and  conscience  and  heart  as  he  was,  will  fail 
to  be  greatly  enriched  by  it. 

4.  Robertson  illustrates  the  power,  for  the  preacher, 
of  a  refined  and  forceful  personality.  He  was  a  man  of 
most  extraordinarily  quick  and  delicate  sensibilities,  and 
he  was  so  much  the  more  a  preacher  because  of  it.  For 
the  true  preacher  is  the  man  who  not  only  sees  clearly, 
but  feels  strongly.  No  man  can  preach  with  effective- 
ness who  is  not  emotionally  responsive  to  those  to  whom 
he  ministers.  Few  men  have  ever  given  themselves  as 
he  did,  body  and  soul,  with  such  utter  self-forgetfulness, 
to  the  work  in  hand.  A  delicate  organization,  rendered 
more  painfully  acute  in  its  sensibilities  by  disease,  made 
him,  in  later  years,  subject  to  violent  revulsions  of  feel- 
ing. He  had  strong  antipathies,  was  not  a  man  of  easy 
good  nature,  although  of  a  most  generous  and  noble 
disposition,  not  a  wide  liker,  and  was  probably  not  an 
altogether  easy  man  to  get  on  with.  He  was  incapable 
of  smallness  or  of  malignity,  but  there  were  people 
whom  he  intensely  disUked,  and  men  who  were  base  he 
detested  with  all  the  intensity  of  his  high-strung  and 
highly  trained  moral  nature.  And  there  was  something 
immensely  attractive  about  this  ethical  fierceness  of  the 
man.  But  he  was  a  man  of  broad  and  tender  sympa- 
thies. He  declares,  and  with  utmost  truthfulness,  that 
no  class  of  human  beings,  except  possibly  the  epicureans, 


88         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN  PREACHERS 

nor  indeed  would  he  exclude  them,  was  ever  beyond 
the  reach  of  his  fellow-feeling.  He  conscientiously 
cultivated  this.  It  was  the  realization  of  his  Christian 
principles  as  well  as  manifestation  of  his  Christian 
affection.  He  cultivated  his  poetic  susceptibiHties  and 
his  heart  was  softened  and  tranquillized  by  it.  It  made 
him  more  intensely  human.  We  have  seen  his  love  for 
the  great  poets.  He  was  capable  of  great  reverence, 
and  Wordsworth  especially  filled  the  longing  of  his 
heart  for  a  realized  ideal  of  human  greatness  and 
goodness.  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam  "  expressed  and 
interpreted  for  him,  as  it  has  for  many  another  of 
his  fellows  in  the  modern  ministry,  his  own  deepest 
experiences  and  wrought  productively  in  his  feeling 
and  imagination.  He  loved  this  pleasant  world,  and, 
although  a  sadly  burdened  man,  who  often  sighed  that 
the  end  might  soon  come,  rejoiced  in  it  as  his  transient 
home.  He  had  a  poet's  eye  for  its  beauties,  and  he 
described  them  with  singular  felicity.  All  this  was 
greatly  tributary  to  his  power  as  a  preacher.  It  quick- 
ened his  insight,  cultivated  his  perception  of  analogies, 
gave  him  increasing  skill  in  illustration,  and  enriched  his 
literary  style,  which  is  notable  for  its  simplicity,  clear- 
ness, dignity,  and  intensity.  It  enriched  and  intensified 
his  sympathies,  nurturing  a  broader  and  more  delicate 
love  for  men.  It  fitted  him  to  receive  impressions  from 
them  when  he  stood  before  them.  He  was  able  to  see 
them  in  their  ideal  manhood.  With  all  his  manly 
British  sense,  he  had  great  facility  in  idealization,  and 
his  poetic  studies  furthered  it.  He  fled  from  the  world 
into  fellowship  with  his  poets  and  tarried  in  this  high 
realm  as  in  a  sanctuary  and  a  refuge.     He  forgot  men 


PERSONAL  QUALITY  89 

in  their  individual  weaknesses  and  meannesses  and  sins. 
By  reason  of  this  delicate  susceptibility  of  feeling  he 
was  a  man  of  notable  weaknesses.  He  was  too  sensi- 
tive for  this  rude  world  and  became  morbidly  so.  It 
brought  him  sometimes  to  the  verge  of  unmanliness. 
He  longed  for  a  sympathy  which  he  did  not  get,  or 
thought  he  did  not  get,  or  did  not  know  that  he  did  get, 
and  it  was  not  always  easy  for  him  to  believe  in  its 
reality,  even  when  the  demonstration  was  before  him. 
He  was  frank  to  a  fault  and  poured  out  his  complaints 
into  the  ears  of  his  friends.  He  could  not  conceal  what 
was  going  on  within  him,  and  if  he  had  forced  himself 
to  do  it,  his  preaching  would  have  been  shorn  of  half  its 
power.  But  on  the  whole  it  is  surprising  that  we 
detect  no  more  specifically  in  his  public  utterances  the 
struggle  of  his  life.  His  strong  manhood  saved  him. 
He  never  lost  himself  in  his  dreams  nor  in  his  emotions. 
His  strong  mind  and  valiant  heart  and  sturdy  will  domi- 
nated all  tendency  to  excess  of  sentiment  or  of  emotion, 
and  all  his  studies  but  added  fuel  to  the  flame  of  his 
devotion  to  men.  His  tastes,  as  we  have  seen,  were 
aristocratic,  but  his  sympathies  democratic,  and  no  one 
can  fail  to  see  and  feel  that  he  is  in  contact  with  a  man 
of  superb  manliness.  Intellectual  independence  and 
moral  courage  are  the  two  strong  traits  of  his  manhood, 
and  the  intensity  of  his  emotional  nature  but  made 
them  the  more  impressive.  He  was  a  born  intellectual 
leader.  The  Brighton  ministry  was  one  of  transcen- 
dent power.  He  was  a  free  man,  at  last  emancipated 
from  an  intellectual  thraldom  that  had  crippled  his 
pulpit  power.  The  power  of  the  Christian  pulpit  is 
conditioned  by  its  freedom.     No  man  can  speak  force- 


90         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN  PREACHERS 

fully  who  cannot  speak  freely.  This  intellectual  cour- 
age of  Robertson's  was  an  immense  power.  It  had 
a  martial  quality.  He  was  rash  at  times,  but  what 
soldier  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  will  not  sometimes 
adventure  rash  things  ?  Practical  wisdom  is  a  pastoral 
virtue.  A  preacher  must  know  his  resources  and  the 
conditions  of  his  message.  But  if  any  man  on  earth 
needs  a  soldierly  courage,  it  is  he.  This  combination 
of  delicacy  and  forcefulness,  of  fine  feeling,  strong 
intelligence,  and  strenuous  will,  made  him  the  preacher 
for  many  classes  of  people.  The  so-called  common 
people  felt  the  power  of  his  sympathy  and  respected 
his  manly  intelligence  and  sincerity.  They  saw  his 
large-  and  tender-heartedness,  but  felt  too  that  he  was  a 
man.  Imaginative  people  were  attracted  by  the  semi- 
poetic  glow  of  his  speech.  The  young  were  attracted 
by  his  earnestness  and  grace,  and  the  sceptical  by  their 
confidence  in  his  ability  to  sympathize  with  them,  or  at 
least  to  understand  them,  in  their  intellectual  perplexi- 
ties. He  illustrates  most  strikingly  the  tremendous 
power  in  pulpit  oratory  of  a  sympathetic  heart  and  a 
forceful  will.  Without  them  one  may  be  a  pulpit 
teacher  of  a  sort,  but  not  a  preacher. 

All  this  is  connected  with  what  in  our  day  calls  itself 
the  magnetic  quality  in  the  personality.  He  was  a  man 
of  Grecian  beauty  of  face  and  grace  of  form,  and  alto- 
gether of  a  singularly  attractive  physical  personality. 
He  was  charged  with  physical  nerve  force,  and  he  spake 
with  a  musical  sweetness  of  voice,  with  grace  and  force 
combined  of  physical  movement,  that  sent  his  words  like 
flying  arrows,  swift  and  straight,  into  the  quick.  He 
never  wrote  his  sermons.     They  were  carefully  studied. 


PERSONAL  QUALITY  91 

and  came  out  of  the  broad  fields  of  his  culture  and 
training.  They  bear  the  mark  of  thorough,  earnest 
thought  and  comprehensive  study.  They  are  a  testi- 
mony as  to  the  importance  of  training  the  man  in  habits 
of  clear,  broad  thinking.  He  has  a  strong  and  compre- 
hensive grasp  upon  the  main  facts  and  truths  of  Chris- 
tianity. He  develops  his  subject  in  its  broad  outlines 
in  an  altogether  quickening,  suggestive,  and  attractive 
manner.  It  was  one  of  his  homiletical  principles  to 
preach  suggestively  rather  than  dogmatically.  He 
would  not  present  the  truth  in  abstract  or  dialectical 
form  for  the  indoctrination  of  the  understanding,  but  in 
such  way  as  to  secure  an  emotional  interest  in  it,  and 
it  was  the  more  sure  to  reach  the  heart  of  the  hearer. 
His  preaching  is  clearly  discriminated  thought,  con- 
veyed by  the  language  of  feeling  and  imagination,  and 
it  suggests  more  than  is  said.  His  biographical  ser- 
mons, which  are  masterpieces  of  this  type  of  preaching, 
are  eminently  of  this  suggestive  order.  The  sermon  on 
Balaam  and  on  John  the  Baptist  illustrate  the  quality 
above  mentioned.  "  The  Parable  of  the  Sower,"  "  God's 
Revelation  of  Heaven,"  "Jacob's  Wrestling,"  "The 
Good  Shepherd,"  "  The  Irreparable  Past,"  "  The  Illusive- 
ness  of  Life,"  which  are  among  his  most  impressive  ser- 
mons, all-  bear  the  same  mark  of  breadth,  insight,  and 
suggestiveness.  The  singularly  impressive  character  of 
his  preaching  is  largely  conditioned  by  its  penetrating 
suggestiveness.  This  is  also  connected  with  its  fragmen- 
tary character  and  its  not  infrequent  suggestion  of 
inadequacy  to  the  full  demands  of  the  subject.  But  it 
was  his  purpose  never  to  treat  the  subject  exhaustively. 
The  truth  comes  to  us  in  glimpses,  but  they  are  glimpses 


92         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

of  great  and  fruitful  truths,  and  the  mind  follows  the  sub- 
ject discussed  because  the  feelings  are  enlisted  and  the 
imagination  stimulated,  and  thus  impel  the  mind  to  ac- 
tion. He  carefully  prepared  the  outline,  jotting  it  down 
on  slips  of  paper,  sometimes  fully  and  sometimes  mea- 
grely, not  infrequently  leaving  only  salient  stress  words. 
But  the  sermon  was  always  well  in  hand.  He  permitted 
nothing  to  turn  him  aside  from  careful  preparation,  and 
he  always  gave  his  mind  free  movement  along  the  line 
of  an  orderly  logical  plan.  Thus  he  went  into  the  pul- 
pit. He  begins  with  the  deliberation  of  self-mastery, 
but  soon  warms  with  his  theme,  and  launches  out  uncon- 
strained upon  the  broad  stream  of  his  thought.  His 
frame  would  sometimes  quiver  with  the  intensity  of  his 
emotion,  his  keen  eye  seemed  to  shoot  his  congregation 
through,  and  with  most  graceful  movement,  in  absolute 
unconsciousness  of  himself,  he  would  pour  out  his 
treasures  upon  them ;  and  in  all  this  there  was  no  loss  of 
self-possession.  His  delicate  instincts,  his  refined  tastes, 
his  firm^mental  poise,  always  rescued  him  from  going  to 
pieces.  In  this  combination  of  intensity  and  self-posses- 
sion he  proved  himself  to  be  an  orator.  He  speaks 
deprecatingly,  indeed,  of  oratory  as  an  art.  But  it  is 
evident  that  he  had  carefully  cultivated  his  rare  gift  of 
speech,  that  he  had  mastered  an  impressive  literary 
style,  and  he  knew  its  real  worth. 

5.  The  rhetorical  qualities  of  Robertson's  preaching 
are  a  helpful  study,  and  our  discussion  would  be  incom- 
plete without  some  reference  to  them.  It  is  true  that 
the  sermons  in  their  present  form  are  not  the  original 
product.  It  was  probably  fuller  and  more  complete 
than  what  is  left  to  us.     And  yet  the  product  as  we 


RHETORICAL  QUALITY  93 

have  it  may  be  assumed  to  represent  adequately  his  lit- 
erary style,  for  the  sermons  were  either  written  out  by 
him  after  they  were  preached,  before  the  tide  of  the 
preaching  impulse  had  ebbed,  or  were  revised  by  his 
own  hand  from  the  notes  of  friends,  or  were  taken  down 
stenographically.  Moreover,  the  sermons  in  their  pres- 
ent form  bear  a  common  mark,  and  when  compared 
with  his  lectures  and  letters,  we  discover  the  same  gen- 
eral literary  characteristics,  although  confessedly  the 
letters  are  sometimes  more  accurate  in  expression  than 
the  sermons  or  lectures.  We  catch  at  once  the  note  of 
reality  in  all  his  utterances.  He  detested  all  artifice  in 
speech.  "  I  believe  I  could  have  become  an  orator,"  he 
says  in  one  of  his  letters,  *'  had  I  chosen  to  take  pains. 
I  see  what  rhetoric  does  and  what  it  seems  to  do,  and  I 
thoroughly  despise  it,  .  .  .  and  yet  perhaps  I  do  it  injus- 
tice ;  with  an  unworldly,  noble  love  to  give  it  reality,  what 
might  it  not  do  !  "  He  certainly  did  no  injustice  in  this 
utterance  to  the  stilted,  artificial  rhetoric  that  has  some- 
times been  introduced  into  the  Christian  pulpit,  -but  he 
did  scant  justice  to  the  best  type  of  modern  pulpit  rhet- 
oric, and  least  of  all  did  he  do  justice  to  his  own  rhetoric. 
He  not  only  might  have  become,  he  did  become,  an  ora- 
tor of  great  effectiveness,  although  confessedly  the 
orator  is  lost  in  the  preacher ;  and  it  is  perfectly  evident 
that  he  did  "take  the  pains  "  with  his  rhetoric  at  least, 
if  not  with  his  oratory,  such  as  all  effective  public 
speakers  have  taken,  and  without  which  no  man  can 
expect  to  be  effective.  And  it  was  precisely  that  "  un- 
worldly noble  love  "  of  his  that  rescued  him  from  all 
artifice  and  gave  to  his  speech  the  ring  of  reality.  His 
words  always  express  what  is  true  to  his  thought,  feel- 


94         REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ing,  and  conviction.  Form  as  such  he  did  not  cultivate. 
He  was  careful  and  conscientious  in  his  rhetorical  cul- 
ture, and  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  he  had  trained 
himself  to  use  his  mother  tongue  with  effectiveness. 
We  hear  of  skilful  debate  and  of  careful  literary  cul- 
ture during  his  university  days.  But  his  diction  was 
alive  with  the  energy  of  his  thought  and  feeling.  Hence 
there  is  but  little  in  his  style  as  such  that  arrests  atten- 
tion to  itself,  and  nothing  that  is  odd  or  obtrusive 
because  self-conscious,  as  in  the  style  of  Carlyle,  with 
which  Robertson  was  familiar,  but  whicli  he  never 
allowed  to  influence  him  in  his  own  method  of  expres- 
sion. The  notable  thing  is  that  there  is  so  little  that  is 
noticeable.  We  are  impressed  with  the  thought  and 
feeling,  and  not  with  the  form  that  is  their  instrument. 
Form  is  wholly  subordinate  to  substance,  and  the  result 
is  that  the  style  is  impressive  in  its  general  fitness  to 
do  its  work,  rather  than  in  any  salient  peculiarities. 
Hence,  simplicity  and  naturalness  are  its  fundamental 
qualities.  It  is  the  moral  sincerity  and  reality  of  the 
man  that  explain  this  unobtrusiveness  of  diction.  It  is 
in  harmony  with  the  best  rhetorical  and  literary  culture 
of  our  time  and  is  the  most  appropriate  instrument  for 
the  work  of  the  pulpit.  For  this  reason  Robertson's 
rhetorical  and  literary  form  is  worthy  of  the  preacher's 
study. 

The  note  of  reflection  is  also  recognizable  in  his  style. 
It  suggests  the  serious,  solid,  discriminating  thinker, 
the  man  who  is  a  searcher  for  the  truth  and  who  lives 
in  fellowship  with  it.  We  find  here  the  diction  of  a 
man  who  never  obtrudes  the  result  of  his  philosophic 
reflection,  but  who  has  been  trained  to  deal  with  what 


RHETORICAL   QUALITY  95 

is  fundamental  By  entering  the  fibre  of  his  thought 
**  Hke  iron  atoms  into  his  blood,"  the  products  of  his 
study  penetrated  his  diction.  It  is  a  type  of  speech, 
level  to  the  apprehension  of  the  average  man,  but  it  is 
the  speech  of  a  thinker.  Hence  the  quality  of  perspi- 
cuity, of  solidity,  and  of  intellectual  dignity.  Because 
of  this  intellectual  dignity  and  strength,  it  is  a  balanced 
style,  without  an  excess  of  intensity  or  an  overexuber- 
ance  of  fancy.  The  teaching  quality  is  fundamental, 
according  to  his  conception  of  what  the  preacher's  work 
should  be.  It  speaks  to  the  mind.  It  is  the  speech  of 
a  man  who  has  taught  his  mind  to  deal  with  principles, 
and  his  tongue  to  utter  them  in  clear,  definite,  forceful, 
and  often  graceful  speech.  The  quality  of  intellectual 
comprehensiveness  is  manifest  in  his  style,  and  discloses 
his  skill  in  crowding  large  thoughts  into  small  compass 
of  form.  But  the  quality  of  intellectual  discrimination, 
definiteness,  and  accuracy  is  not  the  less  manifest,  and 
the  discriminating  quality  of  his  statement  is  often 
associated  with  cogency  and  felicity  of  statement. 

The  idealistic  quality  of  his  mind  is  also  manifest  in 
his  style.  Thought  is  represented  in  the  diction  of  the 
imagination.  It  is  therefore  the  suggestive  style.  He 
illustrates  from  nature,  art,  literature,  and  from  the 
higher  ranges  of  human  experience,  and  his  language  is 
attractive  in  its  semi-poetic  glow.  He  draws  largely 
from  the  tragic  aspects  of  human  life,  and  his  sympathy 
with  suffering  and  sorrowing  men,  and  especially  with 
the  Great  Sufferer,  imparts  a  tone  of  seriousness,  often 
of  sadness,  and  not  infrequently  a  tone  of  most  impressive 
solemnity  to  his  speech.  The  diction  that  expresses  his 
moods,  whether  of  the  higher  inspirations  or  of  the  sadder 


96         REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

sympathies,  are  most  felicitous  in  their  grace  of  move- 
ment, as  well  as  most  forceful  in  their  intensity,  moving 
at  once  the  conscience  and  the  heart  as  with  great 
prophetic  voice. 

Perhaps  the  emotional  and  ethical  intensity  of  his 
nature,  what  may  be  called  the  martial  quality  of  the 
man,  is  most  readily  recognized  in  his  style.  It  is  the 
language  of  a  soul  keyed  to  the  highest  pitch  of  intensity. 
The  opening  sentences  of  his  discourses  are  deliberate, 
reflective,  and  discriminating,  speaking  tranquilly  to  the 
mind,  and  awakening  mental  interest  in  the  truth  in 
hand.  The  close  of  the  sermon  is  sometimes  shot 
through  as  with  a  flame  of  moral  and  emotional  passion 
that  is  almost  overwhelming.  The  words  are  short,  the 
sentences  are  compact,  great  thoughts  are  crowded  into 
small  compass,  and  great  emotions  explode  in  short, 
sharp,  abrupt  vocal  utterances.  It  is  like  the  short, 
sharp,  double-quick  of  a  soldier.  It  is  no  leisurely 
movement,  for  passion  sways  the  soul.  The  architecture 
of  the  sentence  is  twisted,  words  involuted,  stress  words 
repeated,  ictus  thrown  where  impression  is  sought,  order 
of  the  sentence  wrecked,  and  fragments  regathered  in 
new  form.  It  is  the  vocabulary  and  the  syntax  of  con- 
centrated energy.  It  is  the  voice  of  a  prophet  who  is 
straitened  within  himself  till  his  message  be  given,  and 
his  mission  be  accomplished. 

We  have  lingered  wholly  with  the  beneficent  lessons 
of  Robertson's  short  and  remarkable  life,  for  one  finds 
almost  nothing  that  was  not  beneficent.  But  if  we  were 
looking  for  admonition,  we  might  find  it  in  his  too 
subjective  life.  He  lived  too  much  in  his  emotions,  and 
could  not  emancipate  himself  from  their  tyranny.     He 


SUBJECTIVE   QUALITY  97 

had  his  own  inner  world,  where  he  did  not  always  find 
a  comfortable  home.  He  brooded  too  much  upon  his 
own  subjective  states.  It  was  in  much  an  unhealthy 
life.  It  lacked  a  certain  steadiness  which  is  the  gift  of 
the  healthier  mind.  He  was  restless  and  the  victim  of 
extreme  revulsions.  Physical  disease,  temperament,  an 
overwrought  brain,  the  conditions  of  life,  explain  it.  If 
he  had  not  anchored  at  historic  Christianity,  he  might 
have  been  wrecked.  Even  as  it  was,  he  sometimes 
laid  disproportionate  stress  upon  the  subjective  experi- 
ences of  the  individual  in  validating  the  claims  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  as  the  measure  of  all  objective  religious 
truth.  Hence  he  wavered  :  and  yet,  when  we  recall  the 
singular  impressiveness  of  his  solemn  earnestness ;  when 
we  remember  that  those  penetrating  utterances,  those 
outcries  of  his  restless  spirit,  were  wrung  out  of  the 
agonies  of  that  wondrous  inner  life ;  when  we  remember 
that  his  great  message  came  out  of  the  struggles  of  his 
soul  and  that  these  struggles  are  part  of  its  very  sub- 
stance and  form,  —  we  come  back  to  the  conviction  that 
just  here  was  the  hiding  of  his  power,  and  we  say  with 
ourselves  that  we  would  not  have  this  disquieted,  pas- 
sionate soul  other  than  it  was.  We  echo  the  words  that 
stand  upon  the  marble  at  Brighton  :  "  He  awakened  the 
holiest  feelings  in  poor  and  in  rich,  in  ignorant  and 
learned.  Therefore  is  he  lamented  as  their  guide  and 
comforter." 


CHAPTER   III 

HENRY  WARD   BEECHER 

From  the  most  gifted  English  preacher  of  his  century 
we  readily  pass  to  the  most  brilliant  of  American 
preachers.  Robertson  and  Beecher  belong  to  the  same 
period,  came  into  prominence  at  the  same  time,  and 
may  be  classed  as  representatives  of  the  same  broad 
school.  Beecher  was  the  elder  born  by  nearly  three 
years,  but  the  same  year  in  which  Robertson  entered 
upon  his  short  but  brilliant  career  at  Brighton  Beecher 
began  his  longer,  more  varied  and  eventful,  and  not  less 
brilliant,  career  in  Brooklyn.  Strikingly  divergent  in 
type  of  genius  and  of  culture,  in  delicacy  of  intellectual 
and  aesthetic  fibre,  and  in  the  processes  of  their  develop- 
ment, they  still  share  much  in  common.  They  were 
born  preachers  and  intellectual  leaders  of  men.  They 
were  men  of  like  independence  of  spirit,  breadth,  and 
intensity  of  sympathy,  and  of  the  same  quenchless 
Anglo-Saxon  courage.  They  belong  to  the  same  gen- 
eral school  of  religious  thought,  and  they  look  out 
upon  God's  kingdom  from  the  same  general  point  of 
view.  They  were  both  subject  to  influences  that  wrought 
strong  intellectual  and  spiritual  revulsions,  and  they  both 
modified  and  enlarged  their  views  in  the  process  of 
their  development.  They  exhibit  like  humanistic  and 
philanthropic  tendencies,  are  path-breakers  in  the  work 
of  the  Christian  pulpit,  and  may  be  classed  as  epoch- 
making  men  in  modern  preaching. 

98 


REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN  PREACHER    99 

THE  REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN  PREACHER 

Mr.  Beecher  was  a  typical  American.  He  came  from 
a  Puritan  ancestry,  and  his  youth  was  spent  in  Puritan 
communities.  It  is  no  small  honor  to  Litchfield  County, 
Connecticut,  that  it  produced  and  nurtured  two  such 
representatives  of  Puritan  Americanism  as  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  and  Horace  Bushnell.  In  his  prophetic  intui- 
tion, his  high  aspiration,  his  vivid  imagination,  his  intense 
love  of  freedom  and  detestation  of  all  forms  of  tyranny, 
Beecher  was  a  Puritan  ideaUst.  In  his  practical  common 
sense,  his  knowledge  of  human  nature  as  distinguished 
from  his  knowledge  of  individual  men,  his  grasp  and 
free  handling  of  facts,  and  in  his  skill  in  adjusting  the 
high  ideals  of  religion  to  common  life,  he  was  a  Puritan 
realist.  He  had  the  nervous  intensity  of  the  typical 
New  Englander.  He  was  an  enthusiastic  democrat. 
He  inherited  in  a  most  extraordinary  measure  that 
independence  of  spirit  that  gave  birth  to  our  popular 
institutions,  and  no  man  of  his  day  did  more  in  all  ways 
to  foster  that  spirit.  In  him  American  patriotism  found 
an  almost  ideal  embodiment.  In  birth,  training,  culture, 
as  in  genius  and  spirit,  he  belonged  to  us  wholly,  and 
it  has  been  well  said  of  him  that  he  was  "the  pride 
of  America."  No  man  in  the  nation  could  more  ap- 
propriately, and  none  more  effectively,  have  spoken 
for  us  in  England  during  the  War  of  the  Rebellion. 
By  the  power  of  his  personality  and  the  skill  and 
cogency  of  his  speech  he  turned  the  tide  of  opposition 
against  the  Union  cause.  The  hostility  of  the  ruling 
classes  evoked  all  his  patriotic  and  belligerent  instincts, 
and  it  is  fortunate  for  us  that  those  courageous  utter- 


100   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

ances  of  his  found  so  ready  a  response  among  the  manly 
middle  classes  of  the  mother  country.  From  a  small 
spark,  the  consciousness  of  vocation  to  speak  for  his 
people  burst  into  a  flame  that  scorched  the  arrogant, 
hostile  government,  and  kindled  the  democratic  enthu- 
siasm of  the  common  people.  And  this  awakened  con- 
sciousness of  vocation  was  an  index  of  his  supreme 
fitness  for  his  task,  for  which  his  countrymen  will  be 
forever  grateful.  It  was  as  if  all  the  forces  of  the  loyal 
nation,  with  its  political  idealism,  its  patriotic  devotion, 
its  broad  philanthropy,  its  love  of  freedom  and  hatred 
of  tyranny,  its  prophetic  outlook  into  the  future,  and  its 
firm  grasp  of  the  case  in  hand,  were  stirring  within  him, 
as  the  forces  of  the  German  people  were  stirring  in  the 
soul  of  Luther.  In  that  brilliant  campaign  he  stood  as 
the  embodiment  of  the  spirit  of  American  freedom  and 
loyalty  and  nationality,  as  Luther,  at  Worms,  as  the 
embodiment  of  the  German  Reformation.  It  was  one 
of  the  most  signal  triumphs  of  oratory  in  the  history 
of  human  speech.  It  was  also  one  of  the  most  signifi- 
cant exhibitions  of  the  power  of  a  great  personality  as 
the  unofficial  representative  of  a  nation.  But  we  have 
chiefly  to  do  with  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  representative 
American  preacher.  In  larger  measure  than  in  any 
other  modern  American  preacher,  there  appeared  in  him 
always,  in  his  own  unique  and  inimitable  manner,  many 
of  those  qualities  that  distinguish  the  preaching  of  this 
country.  That  he  has  exerted  so  effective  an  influence 
in  modifying  our  preaching  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  so  distinctively  American  in  his  qualities.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  he  has  contributed  more,  perhaps,  than 
any  other  American  preacher  to  the   production  of  a 


REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN  PREACHER      lOI 

modern  type  of  American  preaching.  He  gave  expres- 
sion to  the  half-consciousness  of  the  need,  and  the  half- 
bUnd  groping  after,  a  better  homiletic  spirit  and  method. 
Of  Mr.  Beecher's  place  in  American  citizenship,  of  his 
influence  in  the  cause  of  reform,  of  his  significance  in 
various  lines  of  secular  activity,  it  is  not  our  purpose 
to  speak ;  nor  is  it  possible,  within  permissible  limits,  to 
attempt  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  his  singular  gifts  as 
a  preacher.  It  remains  for  us  to  direct  attention  to  a 
few  of  those  salient  qualities  which  are  in  a  degree 
representative,  but  which  appeared  in  him  in  his  own 
peculiar  manner  and  measure. 

I .  The  strongly  individualistic  quality  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
preaching  at  once  arrests  attention.  In  his  article  on 
the  **  History  of  Preaching,"  in  the  second  edition  of  the 
**Real  Encyklopadie,"^  Professor  Christlieb  of  Bonn  pre- 
sents the  following  estimate  of  Mr.  Beecher  as  a  preacher: 
"  He  was  without  question  the  most  highly  gifted  and 
versatile  of  modern  American  preachers,  the  Shake- 
speare of  the  pulpit  of  our  day.  The  earlier  period  of 
his  preaching,  however,  as  of  his  work  for  social  reform 
(note  especially  his  self-sacrificing  cooperation  for  the 
abolition  of  slavery),  as  disclosing  his  full  greatness,  is  to 
be  distinguished  from  the  later  period.  A  sound  under- 
standing, lively  imagination,  an  altogether  inexhaustible 
wealth  of  genius  and  wit,  religious  earnestness,  daunt- 
less courage,  fiery  patriotism,  good  will  toward  all  men, 
ardent  self-sacrificing  love,  responsiveness  to  all  that  is 
human,  to  politics  and  ethics,  education  and  religion, 
art  and  philosophy,  mechanics,  agriculture  and  horticul- 
ture (so  that  he  once  said,  *I  study  everything  except 

1  Vol.  XVIII,  1888,  p.  644. 


I02       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

theology '),  profound  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  of 
all  classes  in  human  society,  great  facility  of  expression, 
were  blended  in  this  preacher  in  an  altogether  phenome- 
nal manner,  and  contributed  to  him  a  many-sidedness  so 
kaleidoscopic  and  a  freshness  of  treatment  so  original 
that  he  was  for  a  long  time  the  pride  of  America. 
Other  preachers  before  and  contemporaneous  with  him 
were  greater  theologians,  and  had  prof ounder  knowledge 
of  the  Scriptures,  but  no  one  gathered  material  for  pul- 
pit discourse  from  so  wide  a  realm.  He  spoke  upon  no 
subject  that  he  had  not  studied.  But  he  was  wholly 
averse  to  systematic  theology  and  could  often  make  it  a 
subject  of  ridicule.  The  din  of  conflict  between  Old  and 
New  School  Presbyterianism,  that  raged  about  him  in 
his  youth,  had  made  theology  distasteful  to  him,  and  in 
general  all  abstract  methods  of  preaching.  If  he  had 
to  touch  upon  moot  questions  in  theology,  he  preferred 
to  leave  the  exact  point  at  issue  indeterminate.  Christ 
and  love  were  the  centre  of  all  his  theology,  and  in  lay- 
ing stress  upon  the  love  of  God,  His  righteousness  failed 
of  due  recognition.  In  his  exposition  he  never  dealt 
with  dry  abstractions,  but  always  penetrated  to  the  full, 
fresh  life.  Few  could  electrify  and  sway  an  audience 
as  he  could.  He  moved  them  to  tears,  often  very  copi- 
ously, as  well  as  to  laughter.  He  could  change  his 
voice  and  delivery  from  the  quiet,  gentle,  and  confiden- 
tial tone  to  the  most  penetrating  severity,  and  then  sud- 
denly he  became  fiery  and  his  eye  flashed  and  cheek 
glowed.  But  when  he  depicted  with  moving  pathos,  for 
example,  the  miseries  of  mankind,  so  that  all  were  melted 
to  tears,  just  then  would  come  those  jests  and  witticisms 
that  are  almost  never  lacking  in  his  preaching,  by  means 


REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN   PREACHER      103 

of  which  not  only  is  the  assembly  provoked  to  loud 
laughter,  but  even  the  force  of  his  piercing  thrust  is  at 
once  broken.  Under  the  influence  of  these  witticisms 
impressions  of  sin  and  wrong  are  soon  forgotten.  Edi- 
fication gives  place  to  entertainment ;  and,  alas,  it  is  pre- 
cisely this  irresistible  humor,  this  lack  of  reverence  in 
the  treatment  of  sacred  things,  that  draws  many  to  Plym- 
outh church,  while  at  the  same  time  it  must  be  ac- 
knowledged that  the  more  serious-minded  Americans 
openly  condemn  it.  Add  to  this  his  great  dramatic  gift, 
whereby  for  example  he  would  imitate  with  singular 
exactness  the  movements  and  speech  of  a  drunkard,  or 
of  a  blacksmith,  or  a  fisherman,  or  a  backwoodsman,  in 
their  various  caUings.  But  even  in  addition  to  such 
transgressions  of  the  bounds  of  ecclesiastical  dignity, 
there  was  the  frequent  introduction  of  social,  political, 
educational,  and  such  like  subjects,  which,  according  to 
our  taste,  have  too  little  direct  reference  to  edification, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  theoretically  and  practically 
exalted  good  will  above  conscience.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  was  to  have  been  wished  that  the  element  of  spiritual 
experience  had  been  represented  less  fragmentarily  and 
more  richly  and  edifyingly  in  his  preaching.  He  did 
but  little  pastoral  work  in  his  church.  For  the  last  fif- 
teen years  of  his  life,  the  theology  of  this  anti-Calvinist 
and  theistic  evolutionist,  probably  through  the  influence 
of  the  writings  of  Herbert  Spencer,  showed  itself  to  be 
in  essential  features  unscriptural,  as  for  example  in  his 
doctrine  of  creation  and  of  reconciliation,  his  Christol- 
ogy,  his  views  of  the  specific  authority  of  the  Scriptures ; 
and  his  reputation  and  influence  decidedly  declined. 
Pie  always  preached  extemporaneously.     Even  when  he 


I04   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

brought  written  notes  into  the  pulpit  (as  I  myself  saw 
him  make  use  of  them),  his  best  thoughts  seemed  to 
come  to  him  in  the  course  of  his  address  under  the 
inspiring  influence  of  the  thousands  that  gathered  about 
him. 

"  By  reason  of  the  introduction  of  new  thoughts,  there 
was  often  no  very  close  coherence  in  his  discourses. 
But  practical  application,  as  exactly  fitted  to  the  Ameri- 
can character,  was  never  lacking.  In  wealth  of  genius 
doubtless  the  superior  of  Spurgeon,  moving  often,  by 
reason  of  the  peculiarities  of  his  theological  culture,  his 
versatility  and  wide  reading,  in  realms  that  were  foreign 
to  Spurgeon,  and  by  reason  of  his  use  of  the  language 
of  scientific  culture  more  attractive  to  and  more  effec- 
tive with  the  cultivated  classes,  Beecher  is  nevertheless, 
by  reason  of  those  questionable  defects  and  idiosyn- 
crasies, and  at  last  by  reason  of  the  confusion  of  his 
theological  point  of  view,  greatly  inferior  to  Spurgeon 
with  respect  to  concentrated  and  fruitful  efforts  among 
his  hearers  and  readers,  despite  his  great  services  to 
his  country  as  philanthropist  and  social  reformer." 

The  value  of  this  estimate  is  not  materially  diminished 
by  our  failure  to  agree  with  it  at  all  points.  From  some 
of  its  criticisms  Mr.  Beecher's  countrymen,  who  knew 
most  of  his  preaching,  would  dissent.  It  may  be  ques- 
tioned whether  the  critic  has  formed  an  adequate  judg- 
ment of  the  weight  and  permanence  of  Mr.  Beecher's 
influence  as  a  preacher,  patriot,  or  reformer.  Doubtless 
his  personal  influence  diminished  during  the  last  years 
of  his  life,  but  his  work  is  a  permanent  possession.  He 
was  not  a  close  thinker  upon  theological  subjects,  but 
it  may  be  questioned  whether   the   critic's   theological 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN  PREACHER      105 

point  of  view  furnishes  an  adequate  test  of  Beecher's 
theological  soundness.  Those  who  know  Mr.  Beecher's 
work,  and  can  justly  estimate  its  permanent  value,  will 
dissent  from  the  critic's  judgment  of  the  sensational, 
dramatic  character  of  his  preaching,  and  will  regard  it 
as  exaggerated  and  as  conveying  an  erroneous  con- 
ception of  its  edifying  character.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
estimate  him  as  a  trivial,  sensational  preacher.  But 
Professor  Christlieb's  estimate  as  a  whole  is  of  value. 
It  comes  from  an  independent,  outside  source.  It  is 
the  judgment  of  an  exceptionally  intelligent  historical 
student  and  critic  of  Christian  preaching,  and  of  one 
who  was  trained  in  a  very  different  homiletic  school 
from  that  in  which  Mr.  Beecher  was  trained.  Particu- 
larly valuable  is  the  estimate  of  Mr.  Beecher's  greatness 
and  uniqueness  as  a  preacher,  and  of  his  striking  indi- 
vidualistic qualities.  He  has  been  universally  regarded 
as  unique  among  the  preachers  of  his  day ;  by  most  he 
has  been  estimated  as  superior  in  popular  effectiveness 
to  all  other  American  preachers  of  whatever  period,  and 
by  not  a  few  as  the  greatest  pulpit  orator  of  the  Chris- 
tian church.  In  the  quality  and  measure  of  his  pulpit 
power  he  was  unquestionably  altogether  exceptional. 
It  has  been  said  of  him,  and  perhaps  no  more  perti- 
nent word  was  ever  said  of  him,  that  he  was  a  great 
original  personality,  rather  than  a  great  original  mind.^ 
He  certainly  was  not  a  path-breaker  into  new  realms  of 
truth  or  into  new  methods  of  conceiving  truth,  as  Bush- 
nell  was.  In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  he  was 
not  a  student,  not  a  patient  investigator  or  discoverer. 
The  speculative  understanding  was  for  him  to  no  con- 

1  Rev.  H.  R.  Haweis,  Cont  Review,  Vol.  XIV,  1873. 


I06       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

siderable  extent  the  organ  of  religious  knowledge.  He 
had  neither  the  deep  intellectual  penetration  nor  the 
delicate  speculative  subtlety  of  Bushnell.  He  used  his 
imagination,  his  feeling,  his  sympathy,  as  the  organ  of 
religious  knowledge.  His  scientific  equipment  was 
meagre.  He  knew  but  little  of  the  philosophical,  his- 
torical, or  critical  method  in  modern  theological  investi- 
gation. His  prevailing  intellectual  interests  were  not 
so  largely  theological  as  were  those  of  Bushnell,  not- 
withstanding Bushnell's  affiliation  with  Beecher  in  the 
habit  of  decrying  theological  science.  He  had  not  the 
subtle  intellectual  penetration  of  Robertson,  nor  his 
close  mental  training,  nor  his  skill  as  an  interpreter. 
Hence  Beecher's  influence  upon  the  more  thoughtful, 
cultivated,  and  better-trained  portion  of  the  community 
has  not  been  equal  to  that  of  Bushnell  or  Robertson. 
But  upon  the  masses  of  the  American  people,  upon  the 
laity  of  the  churches  in  all  denominations,  it  has  per- 
haps been  much  greater  than  that  of  any  other  Ameri- 
can, or  possibly  any  other  English-speaking,  preacher 
within  the  last  century.  And  it  is  precisely  the  origi- 
nality and  the  size  of  his  personality,  its  freshness,  its 
vitality^  its  sympathy,  its  irresistible  energy,  that  ac- 
counts for  this  influence.  It  was  a  battery  charged  with 
psychical  and  physical  impulse  and  energy  that,  break- 
ing through  all  barriers,  found  copious  discharge  accord- 
ing to  its  own  free  method.  It  was  his  vocation  to  deal 
with  the  old  truths  of  evangelical  Christianity,  modified 
in  conception  and  statement  in  accordance  with  the 
native  energy  of  his  large,  rich  imagination,  emotion, 
and  sympathy,  in  which  he  disclosed  no  strikingly  origi- 
nal insight  and  no  scientific  grasp.      These   modifica- 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN    PREACHER       107 

tions  were  in  line  with  a  broader  and  more  humanistic 
view  of  human  life,  of  the  nature  of  man  and  of  God, 
of  Christ  and  of  the  kingdom  of  redemption,  than  was 
prevalent  in  his  early  years.  But,  after  all,  the  truths 
with  which  he  dealt  were  at  bottom  the  old  truths  of 
evangelical  theology.  It  was  largely  his  unique  method 
of  stating  the  truth,  it  was  his  impulsive,  extravagant 
utterance,  that  often  obscured  the  substantial  evangelical 
quality  of  his  preaching.  It  was  one-sided  and  frag- 
mentary rather  than  un evangelical,  at  least  during  the 
greater  portion  of  his  pubHc  career.  At  the  close  of 
life  his  point  of  view  doubtless  materially  changed,  and 
the  earlier  thinking  was  not  adjusted  to  the  later.  But, 
taking  his  career  as  a  whole,  it  was  his  conscious  voca- 
tion to  give  new  accent  to  the  old  truths  of  the  redemp- 
tive love  of  God  in  Christ,  to  clothe  the  old  truths  in 
new,  fresh,  concrete  forms,  and  to  quicken  and  impress 
his  hearers  rather  than  to  indoctrinate  them.  Not  that 
he  failed  to  be  an  edifying  preacher,  not  that  he  was 
deficient  in  clearness  and  cogency  as  an  interpreter  of 
truth,  but  the  energies  of  his  emotion  and  imagination 
dominated  him,  and  he  was  more  persuasive  than  he 
was  convincing.  He  gave  new  emphasis,  if  not  signifi- 
cance, to  the  old  truth  of  the  presence  of  God  in  the 
soul  of  man,  and  to  the  love  of  God  as  the  unifying 
principle  of  the  moral  character  of  both  God  and  man. 
His  Christology  and  soteriology  had  from  an  early 
period  the  modern  note,  not  as  the  result  of  a  clear 
apprehension  of  the  historical  and  critical  method  of 
approach  to  the  study  of  the  person  and  work  of  Christ, 
but  as  product  of  his  own  intense  personal  religious 
experiences  and  of  the  reaction  of  his  own  capacious 


I08   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

human  sympathies  against  the  traditional  Christology 
and  soteriology  of  the  church.  And  while  in  all  this 
there  was  but  little  contribution  in  the  formal  or  mate- 
rial sense  to  the  stock  of  our  pulpit  theology,  in  the 
wondrously  blended  elements  of  his  complex  personal- 
ity he  was  a  distinct  and  original  product. 

Freedom  from  conventionalities,  large  indulgence  for 
personal  peculiarities,  unrestricted  vent  to  personal  im- 
pulses, bold  assertions  of  the  inalienable  rights  of  the 
homiletic  personality,  are  the  dominant  characteristics 
of  his  preaching,  and  he  more  fully  than  any  other  man 
has  been  influential  in  furthering  this  tendency  in  the 
preaching  of  the  country.  In  him  it  reached  nearly  its 
extreme  limit.  His  freedom  is  sometimes  almost  homi- 
letic lawlessness,  approximating  the  grotesque.  There 
is  a  lack  of  delicacy  of  sentiment,  as  of  a  personality 
too  vigorous  and  virile  to  be  mindful  of  aesthetic  re- 
quirements, in  some  of  his  noblest  and  most  helpful  dis- 
courses. They  are  marred  by  expressions  that  may  be 
tolerated,  but  barely  so,  in  the  heat  of  extemporaneous 
speech,  and  may  be  carried  by  the  uplifting  power  of 
the  sermon  as  a  whole,  without  those  violent  revulsions 
of  feeling  that  are  fatal  to  salutary  impression ;  but  which, 
in  fact,  check  its  movement  toward  the  highest  altitudes 
and  which  in  the  printed  form  are  inexcusable,  and  espe- 
cially so  in  the  treatment  of  themes  that  have  become 
exceptionally  sacred  in  Christian  experience.  Foreign- 
ers, whose  homiletic  training  had  been  more  formal  and 
conventional  than  that  of  this  country,  and  who  could 
not  readily  enter  into  the  spirit  of  American  license, 
naturally  reproached  Mr.  Beecher  with  an  almost  irre- 
ligious irreverence.     But  those  who  are  able  to  measure 


REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN  PREACHER      109 

him  by  a  larger  homiletic  standard,  and  who  know  the 
preponderance  of  his  influence,  understand  that,  after 
all,  these  are  but  surface  imperfections.  At  bottom, 
there  is  a  strong  genuine  moral  and  religious  earnest- 
ness, and  those  who  listened  to  him  continuously  learned 
to  pass  such  demonstrations  of  individuality,  as  surface 
incidents  that  were  not  chargeable  to  fundamental  de- 
fects. These  free  manifestations  of  personal  impulse 
were,  in  fact,  largely  inseparable  from  the  sources  of 
his  singular  power  as  a  preacher,  and  we  easily  forget 
its  grotesque  features,  for  it  is  part  of  a  great  benefi- 
cent force.  This  individualism  was  an  inheritance. 
He  belonged  to  a  family,  each  one  of  which  made  a 
distinctive  mark  upon  his  or  her  generation.  Each  was 
notable  for  striking  idiosyncrasies.  Mr.  Beecher  was 
not  unaware  of  the  defects  that  were  involved  in  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  his  genius,  and  did  not  regard  himself 
as  wholly  responsible  for  them  personally.  He  recog- 
nized their  source  in  a  temperament  which  was  an  in- 
heritance. In  an  address  of  singular  interest  and  power, 
to  the  New  York  and  Brooklyn  Association  of  Minis- 
ters,^  near  the  close  of  his  career,  he  refers  to  his  per- 
sonal pecuUarities  and  to  the  misapprehensions  to  which 
they  exposed  him  as  a  preacher,  in  the  following  lan- 
guage :  "  I  am  what  I  am  by  the  grace  of  God  through 
my  father  and  mother.  I  have  my  own  peculiar  tempera- 
ment, I  have  my  own  method  of  preaching,  and  my 
method  and  temperament  necessitate  errors.  I  am  not 
worthy  to  be  related  in  the  hundred  thousandth  degree 
to  those  more  happy  men  who  never  made  a  mistake  in 
the  pulpit.     I  make  a  great  many.     I  am  impetuous,  I 

"  Life  of  Beecher,"  by  Abbott  and  Halliday,  p.  485. 


no       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

am  intense  at  times  on  subjects  that  deeply  move  me. 
I  feel  as  though  all  the  oceans  were  not  strong  enough 
to  be  the  power  behind  my  words,  nor  all  the  thunders 
that  were  in  the  heavens,  and  it  is  the  necessity  that 
such  a  nature  as  that  should  give  such  intensity  at  times 
to  parts  of  doctrine  as  exaggerates  them,  when  you 
come  to  bring  them  into  connection  with  a  more  rounded 
out  and  balanced  view.  I  know  it.  I  know  it  as  well  as 
you  do.  I  would  not  do  it  if  I  could  help  it,  but  there 
are  times  when  it  is  not  I  that  is  talking,  when  I  am 
caught  up  and  carried  away,  so  that  I  know  not  whether 
I  am  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body,  when  I  think  things 
in  the  pulpit  that  I  never  could  think  of  in  the  study, 
and  when  I  have  feelings  that  are  so  far  different  from 
any  that  belong  to  the  lower  or  normal  condition,  that  I 
can  neither  regulate  nor  understand  them.  I  see  things 
and  I  hear  sounds,  and  seem,  if  not  in  the  seventh 
heaven,  yet  in  such  a  condition  that  leads  me  to  under- 
stand what  Paul  said,  that  he  heard  things  that  it  was 
not  possible  for  man  to  utter.  I  am  acting  under  such 
a  temperament  as  that.  I  have  got  to  use  it,  or  not 
preach  at  all."  It  is  this  emotional  exuberance,  this 
passionate  intensity,  this  irrepressible  energy  of  physical 
and  psychical  personality,  this  irresistible  impulse  of 
nature,  which  is  the  demon  of  genius,  that  must  be  our 
starting-point  in  estimating  these  peculiarities  in  the 
conception,  exposition,  representation,  and  enforcement 
of  the  truth.  Now,  I  venture  to  affirm  that  it  is  pre- 
cisely this  sort  of  personality,  individualistic,  unique, 
transcendent  in  power  though  it  be,  that  becomes  repre- 
sentative of  the  national  temperament,  of  its  intensity, 
force,  self-assertion,  independence,  emancipation  from 


REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN   PREACHER      lU 

bondage  to  tradition  and  convention  and  custom.  All 
the  forces  that  have  been  at  work  in  the  development 
of  national  character  seemed  to  play  through  him.  It 
was  this  impressibility,  this  quick  responsiveness  to  all 
that  is  human,  that  rendered  it  impossible  for  him  to 
keep  any  question  of  human  interest  out  of  the  pulpit, 
or  to  discuss  it  with  tranquil  deliberation. 

The  conditions  of  his  life  also  contributed  largely  to 
his  individualistic  qualities.  His  early  home  life,  em- 
ployments, free  access  to  the  outer  world,  his  own  self- 
preoccupations,  all  contributed  to  the  awakening  of  the 
sense  of  freedom  within  him,  and  all  became  tributary 
to  his  independence  of  character.  He  always  looked 
back  upon  those  early  years  with  peculiar  interest  and 
knew  what  they  had  done  for  him.  In  all  important 
matters  of  family  training  he  was  held  with  a  firm  hand, 
but  in  the  minor  matters  of  the  household  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  freedom,  and  this  freedom  furnished  scope 
for  his  individual  impulses.  He  was  left  to  shift  for 
himself  largely,  and  this  "gave  him  early  habits  of 
vigor  and  reHance."  Like  Bushnell,  he  knew  the  early 
"  salutary  limitations."  He  worked  upon  the  parsonage 
farm,  had  but  few  luxuries,  and  these  occupations  and 
limitations,  in  his,  as  in  Bushnell's  case,  fostered  that 
healthy,  manly  independence  that  stood  by  him  through 
life.  In  constant  contact  with  nature,  he  entered  into 
sympathy  with  its  wild  freedom.  He  "  had  a  world  of 
things  to  do,"  and  "  he  did  not  come  much  in  contact 
with  the  family  government."  He  did  not  come  early 
to  the  consciousness  of  his  power.  It  was  wild  impulse, 
rather  than  intelHgent  sense  of  power,  that  incited  him 
to  revolt   against   the  restraints  that  would  check  the 


112      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

free  expression  of  his  personal  forces.  Later  on,  as  is 
the  case  with  every  man  of  genius,  he  became  conscious 
of  his  gift,  and  then  he  freely  chose  such  courses  as 
would  secure  fullest  and  freest  play  to  his  individuality. 
His  early  habit  —  or  lack  of  habit  —  of  study  was  con- 
ducive to  the  same  result.  In  college  he  would  not  be 
limited  by  the  curriculum,  and  became  a  sort  of  free 
lance  in  every  sort  of  intellectual  combat.  Whatever 
may  have  been  the  ill  result  as  regards  closeness  of 
mental  training,  one  fancies  that  his  free  range  in  the 
college  libraries  may  have  furnished,  as  in  the  case  of 
Phillips  Brooks,  an  important  stimulus  to  his  slumber- 
ing mental,  aesthetic,  and  emotional  energies.  His 
training  in  debate  in  the  college  societies,  his  free 
expression  of  religious  feeling  in  the  college  prayer- 
meetings,  his  addresses  in  neighboring  towns  on 
religious  and  other  subjects,  were  all  promotive  of  the 
same  result.  Even  the  defect  in  his  speech,  which  he 
was  obliged  to  master  by  the  most  painstaking  effort, 
became  ultimately  tributary  to  the  same  end.  Those 
oratorical  efforts  under  difficulties  and  the  thorough 
training  in  elocution,  then  begun  and  continued  through 
many  years,  served  to  awaken  the  free  preaching 
impulse,  which  soon  developed  itself  strongly  on  the 
didactic,  the  ethical,  the  aesthetic,  and  emotional  sides. 
Such  training  gave  him  vent.  Self-expression  evoked 
the  slumbering  orator.  The  great  English  preachers  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  particularly  Barrow  and  South, 
at  first  in  a  formal  manner  which  involved  unfruitful 
imitation,  but  ultimately  in  the  larger  material  sense, 
were  early  tributary  to  him,  awakening  his  own  preach- 
ing gifts.     A  close   study  also  of  apostolic  preaching 


REPRESENTATIVE   AxMERICAN   PREACHER       113 

was  a  source  of  awakening  and  guidance.  That  he  was 
not  long  shut  within  the  limits  of  city  life  in  Boston, 
where  in  his  boyhood  his  father  had  moved,  but  was 
sent  for  study  into  the  country  he  loved  so  well,  was  at 
once  a  security  against  his  roving  impulses  and  a 
positive  educative  influence.  That  in  his  college  days 
he  came  into  a  new  experience  of  the  grace  of  God  and 
won  a  new  conception  of  His  character,  which  carried 
him  beyond  the  Hmitations  of  a  traditional  faith,  secured 
for  his  religious  life  a  more  intensely  personal  character. 
That  in  his  freedom  and  native  catholicity  of  spirit  he 
reacted  against  the  polemical  theology  of  his  day  and 
against  the  violence  of  theological  controversy  is  an 
index  that  points  the  way  to  his  future  life.  That  in  the 
divinity  school  he  pursued  an  independent  course,  col- 
lecting what  his  free  spirit  could  readily  assimilate  and 
rejecting  the  rest,  that  he  came  to  the  knowledge  of  his 
own  expository  powers  in  the  work  of  teaching  the 
Bible  in  Sunday-school,  —  all  this  had  its  part  in  the 
culture  of  those  qualities  that  were  most  distinctive  and 
individual.  Moreover,  it  was  quite  a  necessity  that  the 
freedom  of  the  relatively  unorganized  life  of  the  great 
West,  to  which  he  went  while  yet  a  young  man,  and 
where  the  first  two  years  of  his  ministry  were  spent, 
should  still  further  and  more  rapidly  have  developed 
his  native  gifts.  In  this  early  ministry  he  found  him- 
self. The  influences  of  those  pioneer  experiences  upon 
his  future  career  can  hardly  be  overestimated.  What 
might  have  been  the  result  upon  his  development  as  a 
preacher  if  he  had  begun  his  career  in  staid  and  con- 
servative New  England  one  may  seriously  question. 
Doubtless  the  genius  of  the  man,  as  in  Bushnell's  case, 


114   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

would  have  triumphed  measurably  over  whatever  bar- 
riers. But  he  certainly  would  not  have  found  so 
congenial  a  sphere  for  the  expression  of  his  irrepressi- 
bly  free  impulses.  It  is  no  wonder  that  men  who  feel 
stirring  within  them  the  preaching  impulse  have  turned 
their  faces  towards  the  great,  free  West.  Nor  are  we 
to  forget  the  troublous  times  into  which  he  was  thrown. 
Not  only  did  the  violence  and  injustice  of  theological 
controversy  awaken  the  love  of  fair  play  and  zeal  for 
the  non-partisan  and  non-polemical  presentation  of  the 
gospel,  in  his  catholic  mind,  but  the  social  and  political 
agitations  of  the  day  stirred  an  intense  hatred  of  all 
public  wrongs  in  his  patriotic  heart.  Before  he  left  the 
West  he  had  already  entered  the  Usts  as  an  agitator  and 
reformer,  and  when,  in  1847,  he  came  to  Brooklyn  he 
soon  found  himself  plunged  into  the  midst  of  the  con- 
troversy that  was  to  ultimate  in  the  Civil  War  and  in 
emancipation.  This  great  national  struggle  furnished  a 
sphere  where  he  felt  himself  at  home  in  the  exercise  of 
all  his  powers,  and  where  they  were  developed  to  the 
utmost.  It  was  the  great  inspiration  of  his  life.  Apart 
from  the  pulpit,  he  never  could  have  exerted  the  power 
upon  the  platform  he  did  exert.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
the  political  conflict  doubled  his  pulpit  power.  Then 
came  the  War  of  the  RebeUion,  and  no  one  man  outside 
political  life  stands  out  more  prominently  than  he  in  those 
days  of  struggle.  That  great  conflict  was  for  him,  as 
for  many  another  Christian  minister,  a  mighty  inspiration, 
and  it  was  a  unique  foster-school  and  training-school  for 
powers  that  else  had  been  half  known.  All  the  elements 
of  his  life  and  all  its  conditions  from  the  first  tended  to 
the  awakening  of  a  great,  free,  forceful  personality.    And 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER       115 

of  the  influence  he  has  exerted  upon  the  country  at  large 
by  the  breadth  and  wealth  and  strength  and  impetuosity 
of  this  colossal  personality,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 

2.  In  the  popular  estimate,  scant  justice  has  been 
done  Mr.  Beecher's  distinctive  and  varied  intellectual 
qualities  as  a  preacher.  He  was  transcendently  a  per- 
suasive preacher,  and  in  his  power  to  sway  the  emo- 
tions of  men  the  intellectual  fibre  of  his  preaching  has 
been  measurably  lost  sight  of.  But  his  preaching  was 
the  more  effectively  persuasive  that  it  had  a  firm  didac- 
tic basis.  In  Christheb's  article  above  referred  to,  he 
directs  attention  to  the  prevailingly  didactic  character 
of  American  preaching  in  general  and  refers  to  three 
aspects  of  it,  the  logical,  the  philosophical,  and  the 
doctrinal.  As  a  student  of  homiletic  literature  he  has 
in  mind  the  preaching  of  a  past  period.  From  the 
early  period  and  on  into  the  first  quarter  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  American  preaching  was  largely  doctrinal 
in  its  subject-matter,  logical  in  form,  and  philosophical  in 
spirit.  It  has  ceased  to  be  doctrinal  and  logical  in  the 
formal  sense.  Church  doctrine  no  longer  constitutes  its 
subject-matter  and  dialectic  is  no  longer  the  instrument 
of  defence.  But  in  the  broad  sense  of  the  term  it  has 
never  ceased  to  be  philosophical  when  at  its  best,  and  the 
demand  for  a  reasonable  interpretation  of  religious  truth 
has  not  ceased,  nor  has  it  greatly  diminished;  it  has 
only  been  modified.  To  this  modification  in  the  didactic 
type  of  American  preaching  Mr.  Beecher,  equally  with 
Dr.  Bushnell,  has  been  powerfully  tributary.  His  per- 
sonal religious  experiences,  not  less  than  the  type  of  his 
genius,  were  determinative  of  his  didactic  method.  A 
man  of  intense  intellectual  activity,  he  was  also  nurtured 


Il6       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

in  a  most  stimulating  intellectual  atmosphere.  His 
father  was  a  man  of  robust  character  and  of  stimulating 
mind,  the  most  effective  preacher,  perhaps,  of  his  day, 
and  could  not  fail  to  make  a  strong  impression  upon  so 
responsive  a  mind.  The  entire  intellectual  life  of  the 
household  was  most  stimulating.  One  can  hardly  con- 
ceive of  conditions  more  favorable  to  independent, 
sturdy,  varied  intellectual  development  than  were  found 
in  that  home.  The  life  of  New  England  and  measur- 
ably of  the  new  West,  settled  largely  by  New  England 
people,  was  charged  with  intellectual  vitality.  It  was  a 
time  of  theological  controversy.  The  conflict  between 
the  old  and  new  schools  of  so-called  orthodoxy  was  at  its 
height,  and  the  Unitarian  and  Universalist  controversies 
had  not  yet  subsided.  This  polemic  temper,  with  all  its 
bad  results,  developed  strong  mental  fibre  in  the  preach- 
ing of  the  day.  Mr.  Beecher  inherited  and  perpetuated 
much  of  this  intellectual  virility.  Against  the  form  in 
which  the  thought  of  the  sermon  was  put  he  strongly 
reacted.  His  exuberant  emotions  and  his  vivid 
imagination  were  intolerant  of  its  dogmatic,  polemical, 
and  dialectical  quality.  His  catholicity  of  spirit  and 
love  of  brotherly  concord  reacted  against  its  bad  tone 
and  temper.  His  practical  sense  reacted  against  its 
excessive  indoctrination  as  the  supreme  homiletic  aim. 
His  habits  of  study,  his  neglect  of  doctrinal  theology, 
his  devotion  to  general  literature  and  to  rhetoric  and 
oratory,  his  own  intense  personal  religious  experiences, 
which  resulted  in  a  new  conception  of  God  and  of  his 
Christ,  his  familiarity  with  revivals  of  religion,  belief 
and  interest  in  which,  with  their  emotional  intensity  and 
practical  aims,  he  never  lost,  as  well  as  his  own  habits 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER      117 

of  extemporaneous  preaching  from  college  days,  —  all 
this  and  much  more  of  a  practical  sort,  together  with 
the  more  direct  intellectual  influences,  which  are  some- 
what obscure,  had  for  their  result  a  modification  in  the 
character  of  his  preaching  and  yet  a  perpetuation  of  its 
mental  vitality.  From  the  beginning  of  his  ministry, 
therefore,  he  ignored  the  doctrinal  type  of  preaching  and 
became  an  evangeUstic  preacher.  In  an  address  to  the 
Congregational  ministers  of  London  in  September,  1886,^ 
in  which  he  gives  a  sketch  of  his  ministerial  life,  he  refers 
to  the  reaction  against  the  preaching  of  his  earlier  days, 
and  the  result  in  turning  him  to  pulpit  evangelism.  The 
address  is  of  value  as  giving  us  an  insight  into  his  early 
ministerial  development  "  Seeing  this  fight,"  he  says, 
"  degenerating  oftentimes  into  the  most  scandalous  enmi- 
ties, I  turned  away  in  absolute  disgust  from  all  these 
things  and  said.  My  business  shall  be  to  save  men  and  to 
bring  to  bear  upon  them  those  views  that  are  my  comfort, 
that  are  the  bread  of  life  to  me ;  and  I  went  out  among 
them,  almost  entirely  cut  loose  from  the  ordinary  church 
institutions  and  agencies,  knowing  nothing  but  Christ 
and  him  crucified,  the  Saviour  of  mankind.  Did  not  the 
men  around  me  need  such  a  saviour  ?  Was  there  ever 
such  a  field  as  I  found  ?  Every  sympathy  of  my  being  was 
continually  solicited  for  the  ignorance,  for  the  rudeness, 
for  the  aberrations,  for  the  avarice,  for  the  quarrelsome- 
ness of  the  men  among  whom  I  was,  and  I  was  trying 
every  form  and  presenting  Christ  as  a  medicine  to  men  ; 
and  as  I  went  on  and  more  and  more  tried  to  preach 
Christ,  the  clouds  broke  away,  and  I  began  to  have  a 
distinct  system  in  my  own  mind."     Here  is  a  knowledge 

1  «  Life  of  Beecher,"  by  Abbott  and  Halliday,  p.  608. 


Il8       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

that  is  the  product  of  religious  experience,  and  that  does 
not  come  through  the  processes  of  the  understanding 
alone.  And  yet  all  his  previous  training  in  theology  and 
all  the  activities  of  his  quick,  capacious  understanding 
conditioned  the  value  of  this  experience,  and  they  all 
bore  fruit  in  his  preaching.  In  all  this  reaction  he  did 
not  lose  mental  fibre.  In  fact,  his  preaching  constantly 
increased  in  intellectual  power.  The  exuberance  of 
his  rhetoric  tends  to  obscure  the  strength  and  range  of 
his  thought.  The  early  period  was  the  evangelistic 
period.  The  mid  period,  covering  the  years  of  the 
antislavery  controversy  and  of  the  Civil  War,  was  the 
ethical  period,  in  which  he  dealt  largely  with  the  moral 
aspects  of  religion,  particularly  as  related  to  the  duties 
of  associate  life,  although  always  from  the  Christian  and 
even  evangelical  point  of  view.  He  handled  ethical 
subjects  in  a  masterful  manner.  This  country  has  pro- 
duced no  preacher  who  was  his  equal  in  the  cogent 
presentation  of  political  ethics.  His  study  of  human 
nature  and  of  human  institutions  gave  him  exceptional 
power  in  the  handling  of  such  subjects.  The  later 
period  may  be  called  the  didactic  period,  in  which  he 
sought  to  be  the  teacher  as  well  as  inspirer  of  the  people, 
and  to  give  them  the  results  of  his  investigation  and 
thinking  upon  the  problems  of  religion  as  related  to  new 
world-views.  But  in  all  these  periods  there  was  never 
a  lack  of  energetic  thinking.  His  appeal  to  men 
always  had  a  rational  basis.  And  in  all  these  periods 
he  was  influential  in  leading  American  preaching  away 
from  a  dogmatic  basis  and  a  semi-scholastic  form  into 
a  more  popular  and  practically  effective  method,  at  the 
same  time  conserving  its  substantial  intellectual  basis. 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER       119 

But  let  us  look  a  little  more  fully  into  his  intellectual 
outfit. 

(i)  The  quality  that  makes  the  most  immediate  and 
perhaps  the  strongest  impression  is  his  immense  intel- 
lectual productiveness.  It  is  said  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
once  characterized  him  as  "the  most  productive  mind 
of  ancient  or  modern  times."  This  may  be  an  over- 
estimate, but  certainly  few  in  this  country,  if  any,  have 
been  his  equal  in  this  regard.  There  have  been  those 
who  struck  into  deeper  depths  and  whose  product  was 
more  weighty,  those  who  produced  more  elaborately 
and  more  gracefully  and  more  in  accord  with  the  classi- 
cal standards  of  rhetoric  and  oratory.  There  have  been 
American  orators  who  were  in  many  respects  his  supe- 
riors. Webster  was  more  massive  in  his  mental  product, 
more  stately  in  his  mental  movement,  and  more  elevated 
and  dignified  in  his  rhetoric.  Calhoun  was  more  subtle 
and  acute  and  plausible;  Everett,  more  scholarly  and 
finished;  Clay,  more  graceful  and  fascinating  in  elocu- 
tion; Prentiss,  more  habitually  impassioned  in  his  elo- 
quence; Phillips,  more  incisive  and  pungent  in  the 
oratory  of  invective,  and  much  more  concise  and  clas- 
sical in  his  style.  But  no  one  of  these  men  had  his 
vast  intellectual  productiveness.  None  produced  with 
such  rapidity  and  intensity  and  aflfiuence  of  mental 
movement,  in  so  many  fields  of  intellectual  activity, 
and  with  such  wealth  of  imagination  and  emotion.  A 
ministry  of  forty  years  in  one  parish  with  ever  in- 
creasing power,  nearly  to  the  end,  and  with  surpris- 
ingly little  diminution  of  popularity  in  the  face  of  a 
scandal  that  would  have  put  most  men  beyond  re- 
covery, attests,  not  only  his   amazing  intellectual  pro- 


120       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ductiveness,  but  his  power  to  hold  the  affections,  the 
confidence,  and  the  allegiance  of  men ;  and  the  way  in 
which  he  bore  himself  during  those  years  of  trial,  the 
undiminished  freedom  of  his  mental  and  moral  energy, 
the  poise  and  balance  of  all  his  powers,  and  the  con- 
tinuous unembarrassed  devotion  of  all  his  productive 
forces  to  the  welfare  of  men  were  evidential  of  his 
own  consciousness  of  innocence,  and  it  effected  much 
in  disarming  his  enemies  and  in  holding  the  confidence 
of  those  who  would  be  his  friends.  His  success  in  other 
fields,  and  those  widely  different  from  the  one  in  which 
lay  his  life  vocation,  which  he  loved  supremely  and  to 
which  all  his  best  powers  were  devoted,  also  attests  his 
productiveness.  On  the  platform,  as  a  lecturer  and 
especially  as  a  political  orator,  he  was  unrivalled.  His 
success  in  England  in  quelling  the  tumults  of  audiences 
that  had  become  mobs,  and  in  forcing  a  hearing  by  the 
might  of  his  personality  and  the  skill  of  his  oratory, 
was  one  of  the  great  historic  triumphs  of  human  speech, 
worthy  of  record  for  future  generations.  He  lectured 
successfully  on  a  great  variety  of  subjects.  As  maga- 
zine writer  and  editor,  he  handled  a  free  and  facile  and 
vigorous  pen.  He  made  a  respectable  figure  in  fiction. 
He  was  an  authority  on  many  and  widely  different  sub- 
jects of  human  interest.  In  all  these  lines  of  activity 
and  in  every  specific  effort  he  made,  there  was  always 
the  impression  of  unUmited  and  unfailing  resources. 
The  ease  of  his  mental  movement,  the  affluence  of  his 
style,  the  quiet  colloquial  manner  of  his  address,  no  less 
than  its  passionate  explosiveness,  the  torrent  rush,  the 
variety  of  his  themes,  the  diversity  of  his  methods,  the 
tropical  luxuriance  of  his  rhetoric,  all  attest  the  wealth 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN    PREACHER       12 1 

of  his  resources.  No  one  could  hear  him  talk,  now  with 
subdued  tranquillity,  and  again  with  the  bubbling  vivacity 
as  of  a  brook,  without  being  impressed  by  it.  In  his 
early  ministerial  life,  while  doing  the  work  of  an  editor 
as  well  as  of  a  preacher  and  pastor,  he  preached  daily, 
"  and  once  through  eighteen  consecutive  months,  with- 
out the  exception  of  a  single  day."  A  striking  illustra- 
tion of  his  productiveness,  and  of  the  ready  command  of 
his  resources,  may  be  seen  in  two  different  consecutive 
speeches  made  by  him  in  New  York,  in  connection  with 
the  meeting  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance.  He  had  made 
a  very  effective  address  to  one  of  the  assemblies,  and 
passing  immediately  into  the  presence  of  another  as- 
sembly, he,  within  a  few  moments,  made  a  second 
address,  as  different  in  substance  as  if  made  by  another 
man.  The  man  who  can,  within  so  short  a  period  of 
time,  develop  two  Hnes  of  thought  so  thoroughly  diver- 
gent, has  met  the  supreme  test  of  intellectual  productive- 
ness. This  fertility  was,  of  course,  the  gift  of  genius. 
He  was  a  man  of  singularly  quick  intuitions.  He  saw 
straight  and  quick  into  the  inner  meanings  of  things. 
All  forms  of  external  reality  found  ready  response,  and 
awakened  myriads  of  echoes  within  him.  He  had  the 
"  imagination  penetrative."  His  organization  was  keenly 
susceptible  to  impressions  from  without,  —  from  nature, 
upon  which  he  looked  with  a  poet's  eye ;  from  art,  for 
which  he  had  a  delicate  native  and  trained  aptitude;  from 
science,  whose  materials  and  principles  he  made  available 
for  religious  use ;  from  literature,  whose  treasures  he  had 
stored,  and  by  which  he  had  enriched  himself;  from  his 
fellow-m.en,  who  nurtured  his  feelings  and  affections  and 
sympathies;  from  the  invisible  and  eternal  world,  with 


122       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

which,  through  his  faith  talent,  he  was  always  in  easy 
contact,  and  the  vision  of  which  always  stirred  all  that 
was  best  within  him.  With  all  this  responsiveness  was 
associated  that  power  of  reaction  from  within  which  is 
the  gift  of  genius ;  that  creative  activity,  the  activity 
of  the  poet  or  maker,  that  takes  the  results  of  all  im- 
pressions, and  organizes  them  into  all  varieties  of  fresh 
forms ;  that  plastic  inventive  power  that  manipulates  all 
material  from  without,  and  converts  it  from  within,  into 
new,  fresh,  living  forms.  With  all  this  was  associated 
that  impulse  to  objectify,  to  communicate,  to  relate  with 
other  living  souls  the  thoughts  that  burdened  the  mind, 
and  that  ethical  impulse  to  turn  all  truth  and  all  thought 
of  it  into  personal,  moral  property  in  the  interest  of  char- 
acter and  conduct  which  is  the  gift  of  the  true  preacher. 
(2)  This  productiveness  was  not  superficial  and  showy. 
Thoroughness  was  equally  a  characteristic  of  his  mental 
movement.  His  product  was  in  its  main  outlines  funda- 
mental. It  was  his  habit  to  examine  the  foundations  of 
things,  to  get  at  their  inner  reality  and  to  set  forth  their 
relations.  He  dealt  with  principles.  One  who  allows 
his  attention  to  be  preoccupied  with  his  intellectual  brill- 
iancy is  likely  to  lose  sight  of  his  intellectual  thorough- 
ness. The  very  brilliancy  of  his  diction,  by  which  he 
expresses  weighty  thought  in  attractive  form,  obscures 
its  fundamental  character  to  the  superficial  hearer  or 
reader.  But  below  the  rush  of  his  diction,  below  the 
concrete  illustrative  forms  of  his  thought,  there  was 
generally  solid  substance.  He  had  not  only  intellectual 
irritability  to  a  surprising  degree,  and  the  impulse  to 
utter  what  was  stirred  within  him,  but  he  had  great 
expository  skill.     It  was  a  close  and  harmonious  blend- 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER      123 

ing  of  the  interpreter  and  the  advocate.  He  studied  his 
subject  in  its  elements.  He  grasped  it  in  its  relations 
and  made  it  clear  and  reasonable.  He  never  forgot 
the  object  of  the  sermon  and  he  lived  with  his  audience 
in  the  hours  of  preparation.  But  he  never  forgot  his 
subject,  knowing  that  justice  to  the  audience  is  in  part 
justice  to  the  discussion.  This  expository  tendency  was 
increasingly  developed.  In  the  early  period  he  indulged 
in  the  descriptive  style  more  fully  than  in  the  later 
period.  It  was  pictorial  and  dramatic.  But  it  was  the 
use  of  the  descriptive  method,  to  set  forth  the  inner 
realities  of  human  experience  and  the  occult  realities  of 
human  life.  His  lectures  to  young  men  were  perhaps 
as  effective  a  series  of  discourses  as  he  ever  preached, 
and  have  exerted  a  wide-reaching  influence.  They 
portray,  with  master  hand,  the  passions  and  the  strug- 
gles of  the  human  soul.  They  belong  to  the  first  decade 
of  his  ministry.  His  style  became  less  exuberant  and 
his  discourses  took  broader  range.  He  grappled  more 
fundamentally  with  his  subjects.  His  methods  of  get- 
ting his  thought  before  the  mind  are  always  prevailingly 
concrete  and  illustrative,  but  the  thought  itself  is  funda- 
mental. His  method  is  analogical  rather  than  logical. 
He  appeals  to  experience.  His  thought  moves  in  the 
realm  of  Hfe.  He  illustrates,  does  not  argue;  but  the 
truth  that  lies  under  his  concrete  form  of  exposition  is 
substantial.  His  skill  in  analysis  is  great,  particularly 
his  skill  in  portraying  the  workings  of  the  human  soul;  and 
few  preachers  have  ever  reached  his  mark  or  measure 
in  expounding  the  principles  that  are  at  work  in  social 
and  political  life.  He  handles  these  questions  with  the 
consummate  art  of  the  orator,  but  he  handles  them  fun- 


124       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

damentally.  Estimated  superficially,  as  by  their  first 
and  surface  impressions,  nothing  will  seem  less  care- 
fully deliberate  and  less  elaborate  than  the  speeches  he 
delivered  to  the  howling  mobs  of  Englishmen  during 
the  Civil  War.  They  were  uttered  with  extreme  diffi- 
culty, amid  continuous  interruptions,  that  taxed  to  the 
utmost  all  the  powers  of  the  orator,  and  these  difficulties 
would  have  vanquished  most  men.  As  to  their  form, 
they  were  struck  out  with  great  rapidity,  but  they  were 
the  ripe  fruit  of  long  years  of  study  of  the  Constitution, 
of  the  political  institutions  of  the  country,  of  the  slave 
system  in  its  economic,  political,  domestic,  and  moral 
aspects ;  and  they  everywhere  show  a  firm  grasp  of  the 
special  subjects  discussed  and  of  the  general  principles 
that  underlie  them.  They  are  all  interrelated,  have 
unity  of  plan  and  progressive  movement,  reach  the  climax 
sought,  are  all  tributary  to  one  great  definite  object,  and 
are  not  the  less  evidential  of  the  grasp  of  the  political 
and  ethical  philosopher,  than  of  the  skill  of  the  orator. 
The  first  speech  deals  with  the  growth  and  develop- 
ment of  the  slave  power  that  led  as  by  "  irrepressible 
conflict "  to  the  clash  of  arms.  The  second,  with  these 
historic  facts  before  the  minds  of  his  hearers  and  readers, 
takes  up  the  effects  of  the  slave  system  in  degrading 
labor,  and  has  for  its  immediate  object  to  convince  the 
working-men  of  Great  Britain,  to  whom  it  was  addressed, 
that  their  interests  were  with  the  cause  of  free  labor. 
The  third,  with  these  data  in  hand,  takes  up  the  political 
aspects  of  the  conflict,  and  deals  with  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South,  for  supremacy  and  for 
control  of  all  departments  of  the  government,  executive, 
legislative,  and  judicial.     The  fourth  deals  with  the  com- 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER       125 

mercial,  as  the  second  with  the  industrial,  aspects  of  the 
subject,  i.e.  with  the  relation  of  the  slave  system  to  the 
commercial  classes,  and  has  for  its  object  to  show  that 
a  nation  of  capitalists  engaged  in  manufacturing  and 
commerce  is  preeminently  interested,  or  should  be,  in 
the  support  of  free  institutions.  The  fifth  is  a  lucid 
and  skilful  exposition  of  our  representative  system  of 
government,  in  which  there  is  a  blending  of  autonomous 
state  with  national  government:  it  shows  the  impossi- 
bility that  the  national  government  should  deal  success- 
fully with  the  slave  system  as  a  national  question,  and 
that,  under  existing  political  conditions,  in  which  it  was 
impossible  for  the  national  government  to  legislate  state 
institutions  out  of  existence,  civil  war  was  inevitable. 
These  speeches,  popular  in  form  and  artistic  in  oratorical 
method,  are  full  of  sound  economic  and  political  science 
and  moral  philosophy,  and  show,  on  the  part  of  the  man 
whose  chief  pride  and  joy  it  is  to  be  a  minister  of  the 
gospel,  a  thorough  comprehension  of  the  problems  at 
issue  in  that  great  historic  struggle.  Beecher  had 
trained  himself  to  think,  vigorously  and  independently. 
He  was  not  a  close  nor  accurate  thinker  according  to  the 
standards  of  logic,  but  he  was  a  strong  and  aggressive 
thinker.  He  was  trained  even  in  theology.  His  expres- 
sions of  contempt  for  theology,  his  rejection  of  the  the- 
ology of  his  day,  and  his  abandonment  of  all  attempts  at 
a  systematic  presentation  of  his  own  theology,  are  mis- 
leading if  they  lead  us  to  infer  that  he  was  ignorant  of 
theology.  He  had  examined  the  chief  systems  of  theol- 
ogy in  his  day.  He  heard  these  matters  discussed  at 
home  and  in  the  seminary  class-room  and  was  famihar 
with  them.    He  early  cultivated  the  method  of  the  inter- 


126       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

preter,  and  it  became  the  basis  of  his  persuasive  method. 
His  habits  of  study  and  of  expression,  and  even  his  dab- 
bling in  phrenology  during  his  college  days,  were  all  in 
a  way  tributary  to  this  didactic  habit.  His  interest  in 
Biblical  studies  during  his  seminary  course  and  his 
experience  as  a  Bible-class  teacher  intensified  his  didac- 
tic impulse,  and  these  were  the  decisive  influences  that 
led  him  to  the  final  choice  of  the  ministry.  It  was  his 
life  habit  to  deal  with  substantial  truth,  interpreted  and 
vindicated  in  terms  of  human  experience  rather  than  of 
human  speculation,  and  translated  into  vivid  concrete 
forms.  In  the  early  part  of  his  ministry  he  was,  as  has 
already  been  suggested,  a  diligent  and  enthusiastic  stu- 
dent of  the  Old  English  preachers,  Howe,  Sherlock, 
Butler,  and  of  our  own  Edwards,  and  especially  of 
Barrow  and  South.  He  absorbed  South  and  made  his 
method  of  handling  texts  and  his  style  his  model.  The 
influence  of  Barrow  is  also  evident.  Their  diction  and 
structural  method  were  thoroughly  impressed  upon  him. 
His  own  homiletic  method,  although  always  natural  and 
sufficiently  individualistic,  always  varied,  suited  to  the 
subject  and  object  of  the  sermon,  and  never  stereotyped, 
shows  at  once  the  influence  of  these  old  homiletic  mas- 
ters and  the  prevailing  habit  of  his  own  mind.  His  own 
injunction  to  students,  never  to  preach  two  sermons  alike 
in  treatment  on  two  successive  occasions,  he  obeyed. 
But  if  there  is  one  method  more  characteristic  than 
another,  it  is  the  twofold  process  of  exposition  and 
application.  His  first  object  is  to  set  forth  the  truth 
in  hand  to  the  intelligence  of  his  hearers,  to  set  it  in  its 
true  light,  to  secure  a  clear  understanding  of  its  ele- 
ments and  relations,  and  thus  to  secure  an  intellectual 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER       127 

interest  in  it ;  and  then  he  will  impress  upon  the  heart 
and  conscience  the  practical  implications  of  the  truths  as 
thus  set  forth.  Despite  the  popular  impression  to  the 
contrary,  he  is  therefore  a  Biblical  preacher.  Not 
infrequently  the  entire  discourse  is  at  once  expository 
and  applicatory  and  is  in  the  homily  form.  But  more  fre- 
quently it  is  in  topical  form,  with  an  expository  basis 
and  an  inferential  application,  and  reminds  us  of  the 
English  Barrow  and  of  the  French  Saurin.  Thus  he 
gets  at  the  main  teaching  elements  of  the  truths  dis- 
cussed and  at  the  subordinate  truths  bound  to  them  and 
deduced  from  them.  All  this  is  done  in  a  singularly 
vivid,  illustrative,  and  popular  manner,  yet  bearing  evi- 
dence of  a  mind  that  deals  with  broad  principles  which 
in  a  modified,  but  true,  sense  of  the  term,  may  be  called 
the  philosophic  habit  of  mind. 

(3)  Intellectual  range  is  another  notable  quality  in 
Beecher's  preaching.  His  mind  was  capacious  and 
wide-reaching  in  its  movement.  He  took  large  views 
of  all  subjects,  and  always  wanted  a  wide  field  for  his 
discussion.  His  thoughts  ran  along  broad  avenues. 
Facts,  truths,  and  suggestive  impressions  poured  through 
the  wide  gateways  of  his  capacious  mind  ;  and  under  the 
touch  of  his  discriminating,  analyzing,  and  constructive 
intelligence,  and  the  quickening  power  of  his  vivid 
imagination  and  intense  emotion,  they  arranged  them- 
selves under  broad  principles.  He  grasped  the  broad, 
generic  features  of  his  subject  and  did  not  linger  with 
small  details  of  elaboration.  By  native  tendency  and 
by  training  he  was  an  extemporaneous  preacher.  In 
his  way  he  was  an  enterprising  and  dihgent  student. 
From  all  sources  of  knowledge  he  appropriated  omniv- 


128       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

orously.  Nothing  that  was  human  was  foreign  to  him. 
He  exploited  every  field  of  human  interest  and  was  no 
mean  authority  in  various  and  diverse  departments  of 
knowledge.  He  was  rapid  in  his  movement  and  under- 
took nothing  he  could  not  handle  with  ease.  It  was  the 
habit  of  his  life  to  look  at  all  things  from  the  humanistic, 
rather  than  from  the  ecclesiastical,  point  of  view,  and  in 
this  his  influence  has  been  very  great.  He  trained  the 
man,  and  the  preacher  was  simply  the  man  disclosing 
himself  in  all  his  fulness.  To  dip  into  horticulture  and 
agriculture,  while  preaching  daily,  was  only  recreation. 
By  drill  in  oratory,  by  practice  in  addressing  public 
assemblies,  and  by  literary  culture,  he  fitted  himself  for 
platform  speaking.  While  discharging  the  most  exact- 
ing duties  of  a  large  parish,  he  wrote  editorials  that 
were  felt  all  over  the  country,  and  he  was  regarded  as 
one  of  the  great  journalists  of  his  time.  So  great  was 
his  versatility  and  fertility  and  range  of  thought,  and  so 
exacting  was  he,  that  his  lectures  were  never  quite  the 
same  on  two  successive  occasions,  but  were  always  re- 
shaped and  made  new.  He  was  a  slow  reader,  but  a 
rapid  assimilator  and  producer.  Everything  was  tribu- 
tary to  him.  All  he  saw,  heard,  felt,  read,  became 
pabulum  for  his  preaching.  He  had  the  high  sense  of 
his  calling,  the  love  of  man,  the  ethical  purpose  to  use 
the  truths  for  the  bettering  of  men  or  to  bring  some 
determinate  moral  result  to  pass,  the  teaching  impulse, 
the  eager  observation,  the  comprehensive  grasp,  the 
assimilative  vitality,  the  imaginative  suggestiveness,  the 
emotional  earnestness,  the  sympathetic  responsiveness, 
and  the  professional  enthusiasm  that  mark  the  homiletic 
mind  in  its  highest  range. 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER       129 

No  modern  preacher  has  ever  foraged  so  widely  and 
so  eagerly  for  the  material  of  his  preaching.  He  stored 
during  the  week,  holding  his  mind  in  a  condition  of 
constant  responsiveness  and  of  intense  aggressive  activ- 
ity, his  imagination  always  at  work,  his  sympathies 
kept  fresh  by  contact  with  human  life  in  all  varieties  of 
experience,  always  mindful  and  wisely  careful  of  his 
physical  health ;  and  on  Sunday  morning  he  had  only  to 
organize  the  accumulated  mass  of  material  that  was 
seething  in  his  capacious  mind,  and  to  let  it  expand 
under  the  vitalizing  action  of  his  creative  energy.  In 
the  method  of  his  pulpit  preparation  he  reminds  us  of 
Schleiermacher,  with  the  difference  that  Schleiermacher's 
sources  of  material  were  found  in  the  realm  of  theology 
and  of  inward  experience,  while  Beecher's  were  more 
largely  the  realm  of  life.  This  method  of  preparation 
accounts  for  many  of  the  pecuHarities  of  his  preaching, 
its  wealth  of  subject-matter,  its  freedom  and  largeness 
of  movement,  its  vivacity,  its  carelessness  with  respect 
to  close  structural  method,  and  its  homely  colloquial 
diction.  All  his  stores  were  poured  out  freely  from 
within,  the  form  was  always  subordinate  to  the  sub- 
stance, and  structure  and  style  were  never  very  important 
considerations.  He  was  not  a  supreme  master  in  the 
artistic  handling  of  his  material.  His  artistic  sense  was 
disclosed  in  his  diction,  particularly  his  vocabulary,  and 
in  his  illustrative  material,  rather  than  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  material  of  the  sermon.  The  rhetorical 
dominated  the  logical  interest.  He  did  not  value  the 
highest  cumulative  effects,  and  in  so  far  as  the  highest 
rhetorical  impression  is  dependent  on  cumulative  force, 
he  often  failed  to  realize  it.     He  apparently  sought  a 

K 


I30   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

continuous,  rather  than  a  cumulative  impression,  or 
rather  a  series  of  striking  and  not  altogether  closely 
related  impressions.  It  was  a  vast  accumulation  of 
varied  homiletic  supplies  that  was  tributary  to  this 
quality  of  range  that  we  are  considering.  Everything 
is  on  a  large  scale.  He  will  not  tie  himself  down  to  fine 
points.  There  is  plenty  of  delicate  shading  of  thought, 
but  he  indulges  in  no  unpopular  subtleties.  His  state- 
ment is  large,  often  complex  and  diffuse.  It  is  some- 
times in  the  form  of  a  proposition,  but  more  frequently 
in  broad  rhetorical  form.  Sometimes  there  are  two 
statements  of  his  subject,  reminding  us  of  PhilHps 
Brooks  in  this  regard,  whose  mind  had  something  the 
same  large,  rapid,  free-running  movement.  The  second 
statement  is  more  specific  than  the  first,  but  both  are 
likely  to  be  discursive  and  diffuse  and  sometimes  em- 
brace a  whole  paragraph.  He  is  not  careful  to  trace 
the  connection  between  his  text  and  theme,  or  to  justify 
the  use  of  the  text.  He  has  his  material,  at  least  in  its 
germinal  form,  and  he  wants  a  text  to  fit  it.  He  takes 
what  he  can  get  most  readily,  and  is  not  over  nice  about 
it.  As  he  starts  out  from  his  text  he  approaches  his 
subject  in  a  large,  free  way,  always,  indeed,  in  a  way 
that  is  pertinent,  but  not  artistically  skilful.  Here  at 
the  start,  as  elsewhere,  there  is  the  suggestion  of  extem- 
poraneousness  about  it,  not  in  the  substance  of  thought, 
but  in  the  methods  of  relating  and  expressing  thought. 
If  the  introduction  is  explanatory,  as  it  generally  is,  it 
does  not  deal  with  minute  points  of  exegesis,  but  in 
large  general  statements.  It  is  much  less  concise  than 
Bushnell's  introductory  work,  but  always  concrete,  and, 
as  with  Bushnell,  not  infrequently  put  in  a  paraphrastic 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER      131 

manner.  The  outline  always  has  wide  range,  not  so 
much  in  the  number  of  main  topics  as  in  subordinate 
thoughts.  In  his  discussion  he  runs  into  side  issues  a 
good  deal.  He  darts  suddenly  into  side  tracks,  and 
returns  to  the  main  line  only  to  dart  off  again.  He 
turns  up  in  the  most  unexpected  quarters.  He  brings 
out  the  most  novel  conceits.  His  lines  of  mental  asso- 
ciation are  manifold  and  wide-ranging.  He  has  the 
poet's  eye  for  likenesses.  His  mind  is  analogical.  He 
sees  things,  not  under  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  or 
of  logical  contiguity,  but  of  resemblance.  He  therefore 
indulges  in  such  expository  methods  as  are  peculiar  to  a 
man  of  genius.  The  result  of  all  this  is,  as  regards 
method,  not  most  helpful  for  permanent  educative  re- 
sults. But  it  is  always  vividly  and  often  dramatically 
impressive.  It  is  a  series  of  impressions,  vigorous  and 
stimulating,  while  at  bottom  there  is  substantial  and  help- 
ful thought.  He  is  not  flashy  and  superficial,  but  his 
mind  works  with  such  amazing  rapidity  and  fertility  that 
he  must  let  it  run  on  in  its  own  free  way  unshackled. 
He  violates  approved  homiletic  principles,  and  in  the 
matter  of  homiletic  method  he  is  not  so  helpful  as 
many  an  inferior  preacher.  This  will  do  for  a  man  of 
genius.  There  is  a  certain  Shakespearean  freedom 
about  it  all ;  it  has  the  merit  of  directing  attention  to 
itself  as  a  unique  homiletic  type,  and  there  is  always 
enough  in  the  sermon  to  overmaster  whatever  defect. 
But  it  is  a  type  that  cannot  be  perpetuated  even  by  a  man 
of  great  genius,  and  it  would  be  imbecility  itself  in  the 
hands  of  a  man  of  only  ordinary  power.  He  had  tran- 
sient aspirations  and  made  sporadic  efforts  after  a  better 
method,  for  the  artistic  sense  was  strong  within  him, 


132       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

and  he  knew  the  worth  of  homiletic  as  of  literary  form, 
but  in  the  rush  of  life  they  never  came  to  much.  He 
wrecked  everything  in  the  stormy  activity  of  his  power- 
ful mind,  in  the  turbulence  of  his  intractable  emotions, 
and  in  the  strenuousness  of  his  militant  life. 

The  extemporaneous  method,  to  which  for  years  he  had 
accustomed  himself,  of  course  contributed  to  wide  range 
in  his  handhng  of  subjects,  and  he  illustrates  signally 
the  demand  for  freedom  of  range  in  this  method  of 
presenting  the  truth. 

(4)  Another  quality  in  Mr.  Beecher's  mental  equip- 
ment was  his  intellectual  catholicity.  That  he  was 
tolerant  in  his  feelings  was  the  necessity  of  his  broad 
humanity,  of  his  Christian  estimate  of  men,  of  his 
large  and  delicate  sympathy  with  all  classes  of  men, 
of  his  supreme  valuation  of  the  religious  significance 
of  truth,  of  the  peculiarities  of  his  own  religious  expe- 
rience, and  particularly  of  his  religious  conflicts.  It  was 
impossible  that  a  man  of  his  breadth  of  sympathy,  who 
especially  had  learned  the  difficulty  of  winning  firm  foot- 
ing for  his  own  faith,  who  knew  the  assaults  of  doubt, 
who  had  learned  to  undervalue  the  formulated  doctrinal 
statements  of  truth  and  was  intensely  hostile  to  polemi- 
cal theology,  should  not  hate  all  intolerance  of  feeling. 
But  he  was  tolerant  in  his  intellectual  judgments  as  well 
as  in  his  sympathies,  and  this  was  a  necessity  of  his  gen- 
eral mental  attitude  toward  the  truth.  It  was  his  habit 
to  recognize  what  is  true  in  different  types  of  theology 
and  in  the  tenets  of  different  sects,  and  he  could  not  be 
a  partisan.  He  was  a  very  sympathetic  and  generous 
interpreter  of  other  men's  opinions.  He  was  inclined 
to  find  truth  under  all  forms  of  error,  and  for  the  man 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER       133 

whom  he  regarded  as  in  error  he  had  only  sympathy, 
pity,  and  good  will.  This  intellectual  tolerance  was 
due  also  in  part  to  the  experimental  quality  of  his  own 
theology,  and  not  to  indifference  with  respect  to  the  truth, 
nor  to  undervaluation  of  correct  religious  thinking.  His 
theology  came  from  within,  out  of  his  own  religious  life,  not 
as  the  product  of  speculative  thought ;  and  he  approached 
all  theological  questions  with  a  religious  spirit  and  valued 
all  theological  truth  chiefly  with  reference  to  its  sig- 
nificance for  the  religious  life.  As  a  mere  matter  of 
thought  no  truth  had  for  him  much  value.  Hence  he 
was  the  more  ready  to  value  what  others  thought,  in 
so  far  as  it  related  to  their  own  religious  interests,  even 
though  he  had  no  intellectual  agreement  with  it.  For 
this  reason  his  own  theology  was  somewhat  ill-defined. 
He  held  stoutly  to  what  he  regarded  as  the  truth  and  he 
had  a  clear  conception  of  it  as  truth,  but  he  knew  that 
the  field  of  truth  is  broader  than  the  field  of  doctrine, 
that  there  is  more  in  any  truth  than  can  be  crowded 
into  a  definition ;  and  he  held  the  truth  in  the  large,  held 
it  in  solution,  and  never  subjected  it  to  the  closest  and 
most  critical  analysis  or  particularity  of  statement.  For 
this  reason  he  found  but  few  theological  boundary  marks 
across  which  it  was  difficult  for  him  to  pass  into  fellow- 
ship with  men  of  other  sects.  He  had  a  good  word  for 
all  theological  and  ecclesiastical  parties,  and  found  warm 
friends  and  admirers  among  them  all.  In  days  of  detrac- 
tion and  ill  repute  he  found  no  more  ardent  defenders 
and  supporters  and  admirers  than  in  communions  with 
which  he  had  no  ecclesiastical  affiliation.  His  influence 
in  breaking  down  the  spirit  of  intolerance  and  of  denomi- 
national exclusiveness  has  been  very  great.     His  own 


134   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

theology  was  a  gradual  development,  and  it  became  more 
definite  in  the  latter  part  of  his  ministry.  He  valued 
sound  and  positive  belief,  but  insisted  upon  the  distinction 
between  belief  and  faith,  and  laid  chief  stress  upon  those 
truths  that  faith  appropriates  in  the  interest  of  charac- 
ter and  conduct.  In  his  theology,  using  the  term  in  its 
primary  significance,  he  was  a  sort  of  Christian  panthe- 
ist. He  accepted  the  theory  of  evolution,  adjusted  it  to 
his  theological  thinking,  and  became  an  intelligent  de- 
fender of  it.  This  theory  fell  into  line  with  those  con- 
ceptions of  God  and  of  His  relation  to  the  world  which 
he  had  held  with  measurable  definiteness  for  many  years. 
It  was  because  he  conceived  of  God  as  a  living  pres- 
ence and  power  in  the  world,  carrying  on  to  triumphant 
issues  His  purpose  of  mercy  for  sinful,  suffering  men,  that 
he  laid  such  emphasis  upon  the  element  of  compassion 
in  the  divine  love.  In  his  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  he 
was,  as  was  Bushnell,  substantially  a  Sabellian,  following 
Sabellius  even  in  his  illustration  of  the  Trinity,  from  the 
symbol  of  the  sun,  as  the  source  of  light  and  heat,  the 
two  elements  being  manifestations  of  the  one  fontal 
source,  as  Christ  and  the  Spirit  are  moral  manifesta- 
tions of  the  one  God.  His  preaching  had  a  Christo- 
logical  centre.  What  he  knew  of  God,  he  knew  chiefly 
through  the  heart  of  Christ,  and  in  his  soteriology  he  was 
a  Patripassianist,  holding  that  God  was  incarnate  in  a 
human  body  as  the  historic  Christ  and  that  God  suffered 
in  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  In  his  doctrine  of  the 
atonement  he  held  the  position  of  a  modified  Socinian, 
agreeing  substantially  with  what  calls  itself  the  '*  moral 
influence  theory,"  as  held  by  Bushnell  in  this  country,  by 
Robertson  and  by  the  broad  churchmen  of  England,  and 


REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN   PREACHER       135 

by  the  Ritchlians  of  Germany.  In  his  anthropology  he 
reacted  vigorously  against  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity 
as  it  was  held  and  expounded  by  the  traditional  Calvin- 
ism of  his  early  days.  In  his  doctrine  of  regeneration  he 
was  nearer  the  Arminian  than  the  Calvinistic  position. 
Miracles  he  accepted  as  genuine  supernatural  events,  and 
his  adherence  to  the  doctrine  of  evolution  never  com- 
promised his  faith  in  and  allegiance  to  Christianity  as  a 
supernatural  revelation.  In  his  eschatology  he  was 
agnostic,  but  became  increasingly  hopeful  and  indeed 
confident  of  the  complete  final  elimination  of  evil  from 
the  moral  universe  and  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the 
good,  and  at  the  close  of  life  seemed  to  be  in  substantial 
accord  with  those  who  accept  as  a  positive  tenet  the 
final  restoration  of  all  men.  He  abandoned  Calvinism 
in  early  life,  and  his  influence  in  this  country  as  well  as 
in  England,  in  the  modification  and  subsequent  substan- 
tial abandonment  of  Calvinism  by  the  Congregational 
churches,  has  been  very  strong.  This  freedom  from 
school  theology,  and  this  readiness  to  accept  as  truth 
teachings  that  were  alHed  with  those  that  have  been 
regarded  as  heterodox  and  over  which  the  churches 
have  quarrelled,  were  the  product  of  his  catholicity  of 
mind  and  spirit,  and  this  is  one  of  the  sources  of  his 
wide  influence  in  all  denominations.  But  with  all  this 
freedom,  which  has  generally  been  regarded  as  loose 
theological  thinking,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that,  as 
contrasted  with  the  theological  latitudinarianism  of  our 
day,  he  held  a  substantially  evangelical  position.  And 
no  one  can  read  his  sermons  without  being  convinced 
of  it,  or  at  least  one  cannot  fail  to  be  strongly  convinced 
of  their  evangelical  spirit.     From  the  first  his  preaching, 


136      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

which  was  practical  rather  than  doctrinal,  ethically 
applicatory  rather  than  dogmatically  didactic,  dealt  with 
what  he  regarded  as  Catholic  Evangelicalism.  The  pres- 
ent generation  of  preachers,  that  has  come  into  a  pretty 
well  established  order  of  evangelical  freedom,  can  hardly 
understand  the  change  which  the  preaching  of  this  coun- 
try has  undergone  within  the  last  three-quarters  of  a 
century.  The  average  preacher  takes  his  homiletic 
inheritance  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  it  is  well-nigh 
impossible  for  him  to  estimate  adequately  the  influence 
of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  the  change  that  has  brought 
the  new  order.  Of  course  he  was  not  a  model  for  the 
theological  thinker,  nor  even  for  the  preacher.  He  was 
not  a  well-balanced  man.  His  powers  were  not  coordi- 
nated as  were  those  of  Phillips  Brooks.  He  was  so  many- 
sided,  so  kaleidoscopic,  in  the  combination  of  his  faculties, 
so  subject  to  inward  revulsions  and  changes  of  mood,  so 
impulsive  and  emotional,  that  a  disturbance  of  balance 
was  inevitable,  and  his  instincts  were  more  trustworthy 
than  his  judgments.  But  in  his  breadth  and  catholicity 
of  mind  and  heart,  he  has  had  wide-reaching  influence 
in  all  the  Protestant  churches  of  this  country,  and  is 
widely  known  in  all  the  churches  of  Christendom.  With 
a  less  catholic  mind  and  spirit  he  never  could  have 
exerted  such  an  influence.  In  many  ways,  but  espe- 
cially in  the  quality  of  breadth  and  catholicity,  —  the 
present  generation  of  American  preachers  is  the  more 
influential  and  effective  and  the  next  may  be  still  more 
so,  because  of  the  work  he  has  left  behind. 

3.  No  adequate  estimate  of  Beecher's  power  as  a 
preacher  will  fail  to  recognize  his  transcendent  gifts 
of  expression.     It  is  his  diction  that  has  won  for  him 


REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN   PREACHER      137 

the  title,  "The  Shakespeare  of  the  Modern  Pulpit." 
His  nimbleness  and  fertility  of  mind,  vividness  of 
imagination,  and  passionate  intensity  of  feeling  were 
all  tributary  to  this  linguistic  facility.  These  are  the 
gifts  of  the  artist.  But  in  his  case  they  all  found  their 
most  natural  and  characteristic  manifestation  in  speech, 
rather  than  in  other  forms  of  artistic  expression.  He 
was  an  artist  in  speech.  His  diction  is  a  distinct  gift, 
and  he  cultivated  it  with  ceaseless  assiduity.  It  is  nota- 
ble for  its  ease  and  affluence,  its  wealth  and  variety.  It 
combines  all  the  qualities  of  an  effective  pulpit  style. 
It  is  at  bottom  an  expository  style.  There  is  often, 
especially  in  the  early  period,  an  Oriental  gorgeousness, 
a  tropical  luxuriousness,  of  diction  that  is  likely  to  draw 
attention  to  itself,  and  in  these  more  salient  and  obtru- 
sive characteristics  the  ordinary  hearer  or  reader  is  likely 
to  lose  sight  of  its  intellectual  qualities.  But  his  con- 
ceptions are  mentally  discriminating,  and  the  perspicu- 
ity of  the  expression  matches  the  perspicacity  of  the 
thought.  He  is  an  analyst  in  thought,  and  deals  with 
the  important  and  practical  considerations  suggested  by 
his  subject.  In  his  discussion  of  states  of  soul,  and 
especially  of  the  moral  elements  in  character,  he  is 
sometimes  singularly  definite  and  discriminating.  It 
is  not  a  style  that  has  the  precision  of  scientific  accu- 
racy, but  of  vivid  representation.  It  flashes  light  into 
the  mind  by  the  vividness  of  its  suggestion.  Perspicu- 
ity is,  after  all,  the  notable  mental  quality  of  his  style. 
Thought  is  expressed  in  colloquial,  often  homely,  diction 
and  in  simple,  unartistic  sentences,  so  that  with  all  its 
brilliancy  of  imagery  it  is  at  bottom  a  plain  prose  style. 
The  expansiveness  of  the  style  discloses  the  expository 


138       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

quality.  There  is  a  multiplication  of  the  elements  of 
thought  for  the  purpose  of  clear  interpretation,  and  a 
consequent  expansiveness,  sometimes  even  to  diffuse- 
ness,  that  becomes  an  increasing  tendency  with  him. 
The  style  of  early  years  was  much  more  compact  than 
that  of  later  years,  therefore  more  vigorous,  although  it 
was  never  lacking  in  freedom  and  facility  of  movement. 
The  ethical  quality  of  naturalness  is  another  and 
equally  noteworthy  quality.  Out  of  the  abundance  of 
his  inner  hfe  his  speech  flows  copiously,  easily,  rapidly. 
There  are  no  artificial  twistings  of  sentences,  no  pedan- 
tic straining  for  effect,  no  strange,  remote,  barbarous, 
unidiomatic  vocabulary.  It  is  fundamentally  the  simple 
colloquial  style.  It  utters  itself  with  perfect  freedom,  as 
of  one  who  knows  himself  as  talking  with  his  hearers. 
But  its  most  salient  quality  is  its  concreteness.  The 
American  pulpit  has  in  general  been  distinguished  for  its 
power  to  grapple  with  abstract  thought  and  at  the  same 
time,  which  is  especially  true  in  our  own  day,  to  translate 
it  into  the  language  of  practical  life.  The  illustrative 
style  of  preaching  has  displaced  the  argumentative.  Of 
this  type  of  preaching  Mr.  Beecher  was  the  most  strik- 
ing representative,  and  in  it  he  was  a  pioneer.  His 
theology  is  anthropomorphic.  His  conceptions  of  God 
are  derived  from  human  analogies.  Of  the  Absolute  of 
philosophic  thought  he  knew  nothing.  Apart  from  His 
disclosure  in  humanity,  and  especially  apart  from  the 
fact  that  He  is  historically  revealed  in  Christ,  he  does  not 
know  God.  It  was  therefore  necessary  for  him,  with 
his  vivid  imagination  and  intense  emotion,  to  represent 
God  concretely,  under  human  images.  All  his  discus- 
sions of  the  remote  and  difficult  problems  of  the  Invis- 


REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN   PREACHER       139 

ible  are  crowded  with  human  analogies.  All  subjects 
are  discussed  illustratively,  all  brought  out  into  the 
sphere  of  life  and  experience.  But  few  abstract  terms 
are  found  in  his  diction.  It  is  the  descriptive  vocabu- 
lary. He  deals  not  with  things  as  they  are  supposed 
to  be  in  themselves,  not  in  our  abstract  notions  of  them, 
but  as  they  seem  or  may  be  represented  in  concrete 
images.  His  rhetorical  figures  are  largely  those  of 
resemblance.  Few  preachers  have  ever  equalled  him 
in  the  sense  of  poetic  likeness.  It  was  Shakespearean. 
He  thought  in  images,  and  his  gift  for  illustration  has 
perhaps  never  been  surpassed  by  any  preacher  of  the 
Christian  church.  It  was  as  natural  and  as  easy  as  his 
breath.  Whether  in  public  address  or  in  private  con- 
versation, he  would  hardly  open  his  lips  without  an  out- 
flow of  most  exuberant  and  felicitous  imagery.  It  was 
a  highly  poetic  gift.  It  appears  in  his  preaching,  not 
only  in  formal  illustrations,  but  in  his  ordinary  vocabu- 
lary. Formal  comparisons  are  found  on  almost  every 
page  of  his  sermons,  and  quite  as  frequently  the  more 
compact  and  sententious  metaphor.  Nature,  with  whose 
scientific  as  well  as  aesthetic  aspects,  he  showed  himself 
familiar,  in  large  measure  furnished  his  images  and  illus- 
trations; but  human  life  also,  business  life,  industrial 
life,  artistic  life,  and  particularly  domestic  life,  furnished 
abundant  material.  His  vocabulary  was  large  and  rich 
and  varied,  and  came  from  many  sources.  In  its  range 
and  in  its  suggestiveness,  few  preachers  if  any,  have  ever 
surpassed  him.  The  most  occult  realities  of  the  inner 
life  are  described  in  most  graphic  style,  in  terms  that 
represent  them  to  the  senses.  If  he. spoke  of  motives 
that   readily  disclose  themselves,  they  were  described 


140      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

as  "jutting  motives."  If  he  would  represent  God  as  a 
being  of  power,  He  becomes  the  '' Arch-thunderer  of  the 
Universe."  He  likes  descriptive  Latin  words  and  their 
resonant  rhythm,  and  uses  them  as  freely  as  the  more 
compact  and  vigorous  Anglo-Saxon  words.  If  he  would 
speak  of  the  foulness  of  sin,  it  shall  be  represented  as 
"  feculent  vice."  If  he  would  describe  the  selfish  greed 
of  man,  he  must  use  the  worm  as  his  symbol,  and  we 
are  introduced  to  the  "vermicular  human  race."  Christ, 
in  his  sympathy  with  men,  "carries  the  core  of  their 
hearts."  Men  who  are  in  unsuspecting  peril  "  stand  at 
the  edge  of  unspeaking  precipices."  Everywhere  his 
thought  appears  in  symbols.  The  all-devouring  activ- 
ity of  his  mind  leads  him  into  widely  different  fields, 
and  his  creative  imagination  forages  everywhere  for 
the  treasures  of  his  vocabulary  and  for  his  more  formal 
illustrations.  Hence  his  discourses  are  always  pictorial 
and  often  dramatic  in  high  degree.  His  style  has  vivac- 
ity, intensity,  rush.  He  compacts  his  thought  and  speech 
by  turning  nouns  into  verbs.  Eager  boys  "enterprise 
after  "  all  things  that  lie  before  them.  His  lectures  to 
young  men  are  notable  for  condescension  of  style,  and 
at  the  same  time  there  is  a  rush  and  a  sparkling  vivacity 
in  the  sentences  which  we  do  not  find  in  equal  meas- 
ure in  his  maturer  style,  and  we  are  reminded  somewhat 
of  Newman's  intensity  in  the  marshalling  of  compact, 
descriptive  clauses.  The  conclusions  of  some  of  these 
lectures  carry  a  passionate  intensity  that  must  have  sent 
shivers  through  his  audiences.  He  knew  the  value  of 
literary  form,  knew  that  the  literary  product  will  not 
live  without  it ;  but  in  the  rush  of  his  life,  he  sacrificed 
some  qualities  that  he  admired,  and  in  which  he  might 


REPRESENTATIVE   AMERICAN   PREACHER       141 

have  become  complete  master ;  and  while  his  tendency  to 
expansiveness  and  diffuseness  enhanced  his  expository 
power,  it  diminished  the  artistic  impressiveness  of  his 
preaching.  And  yet  it  must  be  said  that  the  style  of 
the  latter  period,  while  less  intense  and  more  reflective, 
less  artistic  and  more  free  and  colloquial,  never  lost  its 
descriptive  clearness,  and  was  always  rich  in  figurative 
suggestiveness.  It  is  precisely  this  concrete  quality  that 
measurably  accounts  for  the  colloquial  homeliness  of  his 
diction.  His  use  of  homely,  often  rough,  colloquialisms 
was  perhaps  more  common  in  his  lectures  and  addresses ; 
but  they  were  not  lacking  in  his  sermons.  It  is  a  sensa- 
tional feature  in  his  preaching  that  grew  upon  him,  and 
while  it  gave  a  certain  pungency  and  dramatic  forceful- 
ness  to  his  preaching,  it  also  became  offensive.  But 
the  point  to  be  noted  is  that  it  all  originated  in  this  ener- 
getically descriptive  quality  of  his  style.  If  he  wishes 
to  characterize  the  trashy  quality  of  a  large  amount  of 
the  religious  literature  that  is  current,  he  calls  it  "  wishy- 
washy,"  the  "swill  of  the  house  of  God,"  and  says  it  is 
like  the  "  locusts,  the  lice,  and  the  frogs  of  Egypt."  Of 
two  descriptive  terms,  he  will  always  use  the  stronger. 
It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  criticism  is  trenchant  —  it  is 
"  sneering."  A  pronounced  infidel  is  an  "  acute  infidel." 
The  Bible  is  not  severely  criticised,  it  is  "riddled." 
Mission  schools  are  "chickens  under  the  wings  of  the 
church."  The  rich  give  to  the  poor  their  "scraps  and 
mouldy  rinds."  Impracticable  effort  is  "running  the 
thing  into  the  ground."  Any  excess  is  a  "gorging  of 
ourselves."  This  is  the  emotional  intensity  and  the  col- 
loquial familiarity  and  rudeness  of  his  descriptive  style. 
In  conclusion  and  in  brief  summation  of  what   has 


142   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

been  said,  Mr.  Beecher,  perhaps  more  fully  than  any 
other  modern  preacher  in  this  country,  and  if  so,  surely 
more  than  the  preacher  of  any  other  country,  illustrates 
the  preacher's  assertion  of  the  rights  of  personality. 
Intellectual  productiveness,  emotional  intensity,  and 
aesthetic  sensibility  are  combined  in  him  in  an  altogether 
phenomenal  manner,  and  he  illustrates  the  value  of 
training  the  man  in  a  comprehensive  way.  Because  of 
this  combination,  his  preaching  was  of  the  most  animat- 
ing sort.  It  stirs  all  the  activities  of  the  soul.  It  will 
not  fail,  even  in  the  printed  form,  to  quicken  the  aspira- 
tion to  preach  effectively,  the  ambition  to  reach  and 
influence  men.  It  suggests  the  value  of  the  study  of 
the  human  soul  and  of  human  life,  in  order  to  realize  the 
highest  pulpit  effectiveness.  And  beyond  the  measure  of 
any  other  modern  preacher  does  he  illustrate  the  power 
of  the  illustrative  type  of  preaching.  As  to  many  things 
that  are  important  for  the  highest  and  most  permanent 
usefulness  in  preaching,  his  value  is  relatively  little.  He 
has  doubtless  influenced  the  lay  mind  more  strongly  than 
it  was  possible  for  him  to  influence  the  clerical  mind  as 
regards  the  substance  of  his  preaching.  His  influence 
upon  the  platform  and  through  the  press  has  perhaps 
been  nearly  as  great  proportionately  as  from  the  pulpit, 
and  everywhere  and  always  it  has  been  tributary  to  per- 
sonal rights,  to  the  higher  moral  and  religious  ideals  of 
human  life,  and  to  the  permanent  welfare  of  human 
society.  Taking  his  brilliant  career  as  a  whole,  notwith- 
standing the  shadow  that  rests  unjustly,  we  may  believe, 
upon  his  declining  years,  and  which  will  at  last,  we  may 
surely  hope,  wholly  pass  away  and  no  longer  darken  his 
name,  his  influence,  it  must  be  acknowledged  by  all  who 
know  the  record,  has  been  a  most  beneficent  influence. 


CHAPTER   IV 
HORACE  BUSHNELL 

I 

BUSHNELL'S   HOMILETIC    GENIUS 

Horace  Bushnell  was  preeminently  a  preacher. 
His  genius  for  religion,  the  struggles  of  his  intel- 
lectual life,  his  supreme  interest  in  religious  truth, 
his  way  of  apprehending  it,  his  impulse  to  impart  it, 
and  his  method  of  presenting  it,  all  fitted  him  in  a 
notable  degree  for  the  work  of  the  pulpit.  By  this 
it  is  not  implied,  of  course,  that  he  was  nothing  but 
a  preacher.  He  was  a  man  of  varied  gifts,  aptitudes, 
and  interests,  and  it  is  very  likely  that  he  might 
have  been  highly  successful  in  any  one  of  many 
departments  of  intellectual  or  practical  activity.  He 
certainly  had  in  him  the  making  of  a  philosopher. 
Using  the  term  in  the  popular  rather  than  in  the  tech- 
nical sense,  it  may  be  said  of  him  that  he  had  a  certain 
philosophic  habit  of  mind,  without  which  no  man  can 
ever  be  a  preacher  of  the  highest  type.  He  had  the 
intellectual  impulse  to  grapple  with  what  is  fundamental 
in  any  subject;  had  an  easy  grasp  of  principles  and  an 
orderly  method  of  expounding  them.  It  is  said  of  him 
that  "he  had  no  unrelated  facts."  His  facts  must  be 
related  in  order  to  be  interpreted.     For  simply  as  unin- 

143 


144       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

terpreted  facts  they  had  no  significance  or  value  for 
him.  All  that  came  under  his  observation,  whether  in 
nature  or  in  art  or  in  the  ordinary  events  and  experi- 
ences of  life,  took  connection  with  fundamental  and 
regulative  ideas.  This  tendency  to  get  at  the  inner 
relations  and  the  inner  significance  of  things,  which  was 
so  marked  a  trait  in  him,  is  substantially  the  philosophic 
habit  of  mind,  however  remote  it  may  be  from  any 
special,  formal  philosophic  method.  The  world  to  him 
had  meanings  that  lie  far  below  the  surface  aspects  of 
things,  and  their  superficial  and  commonly  interpreted 
significance  had  but  little  interest  for  him.  He  was  not 
content  to  linger  even  with  the  higher  ajrtistic  aspects  of 
Hfe.  He  was  gifted  with  the  artistic  temperament,  but 
the  tendency  to  get  at  the  rationale  of  artistic  expres- 
sion led  him  below  the  surface  of  artistic  forms.  He 
had,  for  example,  a  great  love  for  music.  But  he  was 
not  satisfied  to  cultivate  the  mere  art.  He  sought  to 
interpret  its  inner  meaning  in  terms  of  thought.  He 
had  an  eye  for  the  forms  of  art,  notably  of  architec- 
ture, of  which  he  was  a  competent  critic.  He  had,  in 
fact,  a  rare  susceptibility  to  all  artistic  forms.  But  it 
was  the  necessity  of  his  mind  to  get  at  the  sources  of 
artistic  impression  and  to  interpret  the  artistic  in  terms 
of  the  rational.  He  had  a  trained  sense  of  the  beauty 
of  natural  scenery,  but  the  philosophic  explanation  of 
its  impressiveness  had  seemingly  quite  as  much  interest 
for  him  as  the  aesthetic  impression  itself.  In  a  word, 
Bushnell's  interest  in  the  world  and  life  was  preemi- 
nently intellectual  and  philosophical.  This  habit  of 
mind  he  took  into  his  investigation  and  discussion  of 
theological  questions,  and  he  always  sought  to  penetrate 


HOMILETIC  GENIUS  I45 

to  the  core  of  the  question  in  hand  and  to  get  at  what  is 
fundamental.  He  had  indeed  no  philosophy  of  his  own 
in  the  formal  sense  of  the  term,  and  he  never  adopted 
another  man's  philosophy,  but  this  habit  of  searching 
for  the  rationale  of  things  came  from  the  philosophic 
impulse,  and  it  was  a  source  of  the  greater  power  for 
him  as  an  interpreter  of  truth.  Yet  he  ignored  and 
despised,  or  affected  to  despise,  philosophy  in  all  its 
formal  aspects.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  deny  the 
possibility  of  any  mental  or  metaphysical  or  moral 
science.  A  philosophy  of  nature  is  possible,  because 
"nature  is  a  system,"  but  in  mind  and  in  morals  such 
system  is  impossible.  His  highest  estimate  of  meta- 
physics was  that  its  first  and  chief  use  is  to  "  show  that 
metaphysics  are  impossible."  He  seemed  never  to 
understand  the  significance  of  philosophy  for  religion, 
and  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in  battling  against 
all  attempts  to  apply  a  philosophic  method  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  facts  of  Christian  experience  and  to  the 
objectively  given  truths  of  Christianity.  For  a  mind  so 
enterprising  and  penetrating  and  logical,  all  this  seems 
highly  absurd,  as  it  doubtless  is.  But  it  should  be  borne 
in  mind  that,  after  all,  what  Bushnell  was  fighting  was 
primarily  not  philosophic  thought  or  philosophic  method 
as  such,  but  the  philosophic  system  current  in  his  day, 
which  he  characterized  as  "  a  soulless  matter-born  phi- 
losophy of  mind."  He  was  cast  into  the  breaking-up 
period  of  religious  thought.  He  was  too  late  for  the  old 
and  too  early  for  the  new.  Because  he  had  outthought 
the  old  philosophy  and  had  not  yet  discovered  the  new, 
he  fought  the  whole  thing.  He  saw  that  in  its  material- 
istic basis  and  tendency  the  old  philosophy  **  reduces  the 


146       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN    PREACHERS 

Spiritual  and  material  creation  to  the  same  dead  level," 
and  "  regarding  all  his  actions  as  the  successive  products 
of  a  systematic  mechanism,  it  sees  in  man  no  heaven- 
ward tendency,  no  yearning  of  his  nature  after  God  and 
goodness."  It  is  doubtless  true  that  he  did  good  service 
in  his  contribution  to  the  disintegration  of  the  existing 
scheme  of  philosophic  thought  as  applied  to  the  inter- 
pretation of  religion ;  but  he  went  too  far,  accepting  a 
somewhat  fanciful  theory  of  language  that  rendered 
impossible  any  philosophy  of  religion,  and  this  unfitted 
him  for  any  adequate  apprehension  of  religion  in  its 
philosophic  aspects. 

But  the  practical,  and  for  Bushnell  himself  one  might 
almost  say  the  beneficent,  result  of  all  this  was  that  it 
led  him  the  more  determinately  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
preacher's  habit  of  mind,  and  the  aggregate  result  for 
the  world  was  doubtless  more  and  better  than  it  would 
have  been  had  he  been  a  more  consistent  philosophical 
thinker. 

Dr.  Bushnell  was  a  theologian  and  has  left  behind  a 
theology  sufficiently  distinctive  to  bear  his  name.  It  is 
a  curious  turn  in  the  course  of  events  that  our  theological 
institutions,  as  in  a  sort  of  defence  of  the  Christian  faith, 
should  to-day  be  expounding  the  theology  of  a  man  who 
spent  his  life  in  antagonizing  theology,  and  who  denied 
that  anything  like  a  system  of  theology  is  possible. 
But  the  fact  is  that  Bushnell  had  the  full  outfit  of  a 
notable  theological  interpreter,  and  might  have  made  a 
competent  theological  investigator.  He  had  a  robust 
intelligence,  a  keen  insight  into  the  realities  of  reHgion, 
such  as  stimulated  him  to  bring  that  intelligence  to  bear 
upon  the  problems  of  religion,  a  great  hunger  of  heart 


HOMILETIC   GENIUS  I47 

for  the  invisible,  the  eternal,  the  spiritual,  a  strong  grasp 
of  the  truths  and  facts  of  religion,  and  a  logical  faculty 
that  fitted  him  to  relate  those  truths  and  facts,  and  to 
bring  them  into  a  fairly  well-ordered  whole.  He  was 
not  a  theologian  of  the  type  of  his  teacher.  Dr.  Na- 
thaniel W.  Taylor,  whose  method  and  results  he  stoutly 
antagonized ;  and  his  own  method,  or  as  some  might  say 
defect  of  method,  perhaps  incapacitated  him  for  recog- 
nizing the  significance  of  his  teacher  in  the  develop- 
ment of  New  England  theology,  and  for  assigning  to  his 
work  its  true  value.  He  refused  to  employ  the  dialectical 
faculties  with  which  he  was  equipped,  and  rejected  a 
method  in  which  he  could  easily  have  become  a  master. 
As  he  denied  the  possibility  of  a  philosophy  of  mind  and 
of  morals,  so  he  denied  that  the  experiences  of  religion 
could  ever  be  brought  within  the  limits  of  scientific 
statement.  In  this  he  is  for  this  country  a  pioneer  in 
movements  that  developed  after  he  left  the  stage,  and 
that  have  become  domesticated  in  the  religious  thinking 
of  wide-reaching  circles  in  our  own  day.  But  it  would 
be  idle  to  deny  that,  after  his  own  kind,  he  was  a  theo- 
logian of  high  degree.  His  theology  was  "  pectoral," 
but  it  was  a  theology.  It  was  more  than  a  subjective 
experience  incapable  of  rational  interpretation.  He 
was  not  at  all  content  that  his  own  or  any  other  man's 
religious  life  should  remain  a  vague,  undefined  emotional 
and  ethical  experience.  It  was  the  necessity  of  his 
keen,  sturdy  New  England  mind,  trained  in  intellectual 
gymnastics,  to  grapple  with  religion  as  an  intellectual 
problem.  He  stoutly  maintains  that  Christianity  is  not 
a  gift  to  the  intellect,  but  to  the  imagination  and  the 
heart,  and  that  language  is  wholly  incompetent  to  f  ormu- 


148   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

late  the  content  of  religious  experience  into  an  intellec- 
tual system.  But  it  is  as  impossible  for  him  to  detach 
his  sturdy  mind  from  the  problems  of  religion  as  it  is 
his  impressible  heart  from  its  experiences.  In  his  own 
way  he  was  a  rationalist,  and  there  is  a  certain  naivete 
in  his  vigorous  onslaught  upon  theology,  since  in  the 
very  process  of  his  criticism  he  is  bringing  out  a  the- 
ology of  his  own.  The  real  object  of  his  assault  is  not 
theology  as  such,  but  the  kind  of  theology  that  is  cur- 
rent in  his  day,  and  particularly  its  methods  and  results. 
He  believed  in  theology,  as  every  man  who  does  any 
thinking  upon  the  problems  of  rehgion  must,  and  he 
was  not  without  an  orderly  and  consistent  method  of 
developing  his  own  theological  thought.  But  the  point 
is  that  it  was  his  own,  and  not  other  men's,  theology 
that  commanded  his  interest  and  respect.  In  the  sense 
of  the  term  that  was  accepted  in  his  day,  he  was  not  a 
theologian.  His  method  was  that  of  the  preacher,  and 
no  American  preacher  within  the  last  century  has  suc- 
ceeded in  introducing  more  theology  into  the  pulpit  or 
in  discussing  theological  problems  in  a  more  interesting 
and  effective  manner  than  he.  The  significance  and 
value  of  Dr.  Bushnell  for  the  Christian  church  is  not  in 
the  fact  that  he  antagonized  theology  and  denied  the 
rational  possibility  of  it,  but  in  his  battUng  a  theology 
that  had  a  false  philosophical  basis  and  a  wrong  method, 
and  perhaps  especially  in  the  fact  that  he  brought  to 
the  investigation  of  theology  the  spirit  and  method 
of  the  preacher,  and  therefore  brought  theology  out 
into  the  practical  lives  of  men.  He  had  no  theology 
that  he  could  not  preach,  and  he  believed  in  none  that 
could  not  and  should  not  be  translated  from  the  realm 


HOMILETIC  GENIUS  I49 

of  thought  into  the  realm  of  life.  It  is  here  that  we  see 
the  genius  of  the  preacher.  It  was  the  spirit  and  the 
method  of  the  Christian  prophet,  rather  than  of  the 
Christian  dialectician.  The  mystical  has  somewhat 
obscured  the  dialectical  element  in  Dr.  Bushnell.  But 
Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke's  characterization  of  him  as  "  the 
most  logical  of  mystics  and  the  most  mystical  of 
logicians  "  is  strictly  correct.  He  understood  thoroughly 
well  the  laws  of  thought,  and  he  was  the  better  preacher 
on  that  account.  It  is  true  that  he  could  not  or  would 
not  hold  the  truth  he  discussed  under  the  limitations  of 
close  formal  definition,  nor  use  in  its  presentation  the 
categories  of  dialectic,  and  he  was  the  more  a  preacher 
for  that  very  reason.  But  he  had  a  strongly  logical 
mind;  he  presented  the  truth  in  an  orderly,  logical 
manner  and  carried  his  hearers  by  the  cogency  and 
cumulative  energy  of  his  presentation.  In  early  youth 
he  showed  those  judicial  qualities  of  mind  that  won  the 
confidence  and  respect  of  his  elders.  It  is  said  of  him 
that  when  a  youth  of  sixteen  years  he  showed  unusual 
ability  in  sifting  evidence  and  in  forming  correct  judg- 
ments upon  important  questions,  and  it  was  very  likely 
this  quality  of  mind  that  gave  him  a  bias  or  inclination 
to  the  study  of  law.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  he 
would  have  had  a  distinguished  career  in  the  legal  pro- 
fession. He  was  skilful  in  debate  and  early  developed 
the  debating  habit.  His  mind  was  quick,  keen,  and 
eager,  seizing  as  by  logical  instinct  upon  the  strong 
points  of  a  subject,  and  the  impulse  for  discussion  is  a 
marked  characteristic  in  all  his  work.  His  method  from 
the  first  was  eminently  logical  and  always  continued  to 
be.     Yet  it  was  the  mystical  and  poetical  rather  than 


ISO       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

the  dialectical  quality  in  him  that  won  the  ascendency, 
and  which  disclosed  itself  in  various  ways  in  his  develop- 
ment. And  here  again  we  see  the  preacher.  He  was  pro- 
foundly interested  in  political  questions,  and  had  a  sound 
working  knowledge  of  their  theoretic  aspects,  but  always 
discussed  them  from  the  ethical  and  religious  point  of 
view,  and  he  made  himself  strongly  felt  as  a  Christian 
citizen.  He  undoubtedly  would  have  made  a  notable 
figure  in  civic  life  and  might  have  become  a  statesman 
of  wide-reaching  and  most  beneficent  influence.  But 
all  his  patriotism  and  all  his  knowledge  of  public  affairs 
were  made  subordinate  and  tributary  to  the  work  of  the 
pulpit.  It  was  the  impulse  of  the  preacher  that  domi- 
nated the  impulse  of  the  patriot  and  the  citizen. 

He  had  ready  insight  into  the  spiritual  significance 
of  Biblical  truth,  seemed  less  dependent  than  most  men 
by  reason  of  this  insight  upon  the  science  of  exegesis  for 
his  apprehension  of  the  truth  of  Biblical  revelation,  and 
he  had  a  great  deal  of  skill  in  a  species  of  compact,  sen- 
tentious, expository,  often  periphrastic,  statement  of  it. 
His  explanations  of  Scripture  are  always  in  rhetorical 
and  popular  literary  form.  But  he  knew  little  or  noth- 
ing about  the  modern  science  of  exegesis  and  Biblical 
theology.  His  interpretations  are  highly  interesting, 
suggestive,  and  helpful,  but  often  fanciful,  and  lack 
the  support  of  recognized  exegetical  canons.  He  was 
master  of  "  exegetical  divination,"  not  of  exegetical 
science.  In  this  too,  as  in  the  case  of  Augustine,  he 
was  the  preacher. 

In  the  modern  acceptation  of  the  word,  he  cannot  be 
called  a  student  or  scholar.  He  did  not  even  read  very 
widely,  and  his  attainments  in  profound  and  connected 


HOMILETIC  GENIUS  151 

knowledge  of  any  subject  that  demands  scholarly  inves- 
tigation were  meagre.  By  patient,  protracted,  toilful 
research  he  never  mastered  any  subject.  He  had  a 
great  many  ideas  upon  a  great  variety  of  subjects,  and 
even  upon  subjects  he  had  not  investigated  he  could 
talk  interestingly  and  instructively.  By  independent 
reflection  he  was  able  to  penetrate  the  depths  of  a  sub- 
ject, but  what  others  had  thought  and  said  upon  it  he 
did  not  know,  nor  did  he  much  care.  In  fact,  he  was 
less  dependent  than  most  men  upon  research  for  the 
formation  of  his  intellectual  judgments.  His  keen  men- 
tal penetration  measurably  served  him  instead,  and  he 
was  generally  worth  Ustening  to  on  almost  any  subject 
on  which  he  might  choose  to  speak.  His  neglect  of 
what  others  had  done  and  thought  and  said,  however, 
was  the  serious  fault  of  his  life.  His  mind  was  singu- 
larly quick  and  keen  and  penetrating,  but  from  early 
years  he  lacked  the  concentration  of  the  student  and 
scholar.  Even  when  he  undertook  to  examine  and 
state  the  results  of  others'  investigations,  he  proved  to 
be  somewhat  untrustworthy,  for  he  was  likely  to  read 
his  own  vigorous,  creative  thoughts  into  the  process. 
Scholars  like  Professor  Shedd  could  easily  bring  him  to 
book  and  put  him  to  confusion  by  showing  the  mis- 
apprehensions and  mistakes  of  his  subjective  preposses- 
sions in  attempting  to  interpret  a  theological  work  like 
Anselm's  "Cur  Deus  Homo?"  When  brought  to  the  test 
of  scholarly  judgment  much  of  his  thinking  was  unre- 
liable. And  yet  it  is  true  that  his  eager  mind  sought 
commerce  with  the  sources  of  intellectual  training  and 
culture,  and  in  various  ways  he  showed  the  results  of  it 
in  a  scholarly  habit  of  mind.     His  scholarship,  such  as 


152       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

it  was,  showed  itself  in  a  trained  capacity  for  vigorous 
intellectual  grasp  of  the  weighty  problems  of  life,  rather 
than  in  stored  intellectual  acquisitions  or  in  a  scientific 
method  of  investigation.  He  bore  the  result  of  years 
of  varied  mental  activity  in  the  fibre  of  his  thinking, 
and  he  was  one  of  the  most  interesting,  helpful,  and 
intellectually  stimulating  thinkers  of  his  time.  In  this 
intellectual  independence,  this  creative  activity,  this  lack 
of  scientific  method  and  limitation  of  scientific  acquisi- 
tions, we  see  once  more  the  preacher. 

Dr.  Bushnell  was  a  realist  as  well  as  an  idealist. 
He  had  a  strong,  manly  grasp  of  things  as  they  are. 
To  a  poetic  insight  and  the  prophetic  vision  of  a  higher 
invisible  world,  which  was  a  gift  from  his  Puritan  ances- 
try, and  which  seems,  as  is  so  often  the  case,  to  have 
come  through  his  mother,  or  his  maternal  ancestors,  was 
added  that  sturdy  common  sense  and  that  firm  grasp 
of  reality  that  is  not  less  the  Puritan  gift.  It  was  this, 
very  likely,  as  in  the  case  of  Robertson,  that  gave  him 
a  taste  for  the  natural  sciences.  Considering  his  habit 
of  intellectual  thoroughness,  his  tendency  to  go  to  the 
bottom  of  things,  his  respect  for  nature  as  the  realm  of 
causation,  and  his  general  respect  for  the  causal  relation 
of  things,  together  with  that  tenacity  of  will  that  led 
him  to  the  mastery  of  whatever  he  undertook,  he  might 
have  made,  one  fancies,  a  respectable  figure  as  a  scien- 
tific student,  had  he  been  early  turned  in  that  direction. 
He  had  a  trained  eye  for  topography,  and  a  habit  of 
throwing  out  imaginary  highways  and  railroad  Hues 
and  bridges  and  of  throwing  up  military  defences  with 
mathematical  accuracy  of  measurement,  and  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  he  might  have  had  a  successful  career  as 


HOMILETIC  GENIUS  1 53 

a  civil  engineer.  There  was  nothing  human  seemingly 
that  was  foreign  to  him.  He  was  far-seeing  and  saga- 
cious in  practical  affairs.  He  was  intelligently  interested 
in  the  pursuits  of  men's  daily  lives.  He  knew  some- 
thing about  the  markets  and  the  laws  of  trade,  was  at 
home  with  men  in  their  ordinary  business  life,  could 
sometimes  give  them  "  points "  worth  considering  in 
their  business  management,  and  might  himself  appar- 
ently have  been  a  successful  man  of  affairs.  But  these 
multifarious  gifts  were  after  all  subordinate.  They 
heightened  his  value  as  a  minister  and  became  indirectly 
tributary  to  his  power  as  a  preacher,  but  were  not  his 
distinguishing  gifts.  It  was  his  Puritan  idealism  that 
dominated  his  Puritan  realism,  and  this  was  the  fountain 
of  his  homiletic  genius.  It  was  the  prophetic  gift,  the 
sympathetic,  the  emotional,  the  image-making  impulse, 
that  led  him  into  the  realm  of  the  invisible  and  ideal, 
and  it  was  a  gracious  providence  that  led  him,  under  the 
guidance  of  his  mother's  prophetic  soul,  from  all  the 
allurements  of  a  lower  order  of  life,  where  indeed  he 
might  have  been  successful  and  useful,  into  the  Chris- 
tian ministry,  where  only  all  his  best  and  most  charac- 
teristic powers  found  their  proper  sphere. 

In  saying  that  Bushnell  was  preeminently  a  preacher 
it  is  not  meant  that  he  was  a  preeminently  popular 
preacher.  There  are  of  course  many  sorts  of  pulpit 
power,  and  no  man's  greatness  and  success  as  a  preacher 
may  be  measured  by  the  number  that  crowd  to  hear  him. 
Many  a  pulpit  mountebank  is  able  to  draw  the  crowd 
and  to  achieve  a  superficial,  ephemeral,  and  nominal 
success.  Bushnell  did  not  value  popularity  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  as  Robertson  did  not.     The 


154       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

so-called  common  people  did  not  listen  to  him  with  such 
genuine  intensity  of  emotional  interest  as  they  listened 
to  Mr.  Beecher,  and  he  had  nothing  of  Beecher's  popular 
power.  But  he  was  in  some  respects  the  superior  of  Mr. 
Beecher  as  a  preacher,  certainly  a  much  more  desir- 
able and  helpful  model  for  most  preachers.  He  had 
most  of  the  qualities  of  a  great  and  impressive  inter- 
preter and  advocate  of  religious  truth,  and  no  person 
of  even  ordinary  intelligence  could  Usten  to  him  with- 
out being  attracted  to  him  and  strongly  interested  in 
his  sincerity  and  earnestness,  his  breadth  of  humanity, 
his  catholicity  of  spirit,  his  intellectual  incisiveness,  his 
steady,  orderly  movement,  his  fresh  and  vivid  con- 
ceptions, and  the  concrete  style  of  his  representation. 
And  no  person  of  intellectual  inquisitiveness,  of  love 
of  reality,  of  rehgious  susceptibility,  could  ever  listen 
to  him  without  strong  intellectual  interest,  and  often 
without  deep  emotional  and  ethical  and  spiritual  inter- 
est and  profit.  Setting  aside  Mr.  Beecher,  whose  dis- 
tinctive qualities  of  genius  have  given  him  a  unique 
position  among  American  preachers,  Dr.  Bushnell  was 
by  far  the  most  weighty  and  at  the  same  time  in 
many  respects  the  most  attractive  and  suggestive  and 
forceful  and  helpful  preacher  of  his  day.  And  as  a 
pastoral  preacher  he  has  in  later  days  no  successor, 
Phillips  Brooks  excepted,  who  is  Bushnell's  peer,  not 
in  intellectual  penetration  or  grip  or  strength  of  men- 
tal movement,  but  only  in  quickening  and  suggestive 
power  and  in  practical  helpfulness. 

In  estimating  Dr.  Bushnell  as  a  preacher,  and  to  do 
this  is  the  sole  purpose  of  this  discussion,  it  is  necessary 
to  note  more  fully  his  equipment  for  the  work  of  the 


HOMILETIC   PERSONALITY  155 

pulpit.  Let  us  therefore  undertake  to  investigate  some 
of  the  sources  of  his  power  as  a  preacher.  And  if  the 
discussion  seems  to  have  been  anticipated,  it  is  only  in 
a  general  way,  and  may  prepare  us  for  a  fuller  analysis. 


II 

BUSHNELL'S  HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY 

What  Bushnell  taught,  the  substance  of  his  message, 
important  as  it  is  for  our  estimate  of  the  significance  of 
his  career,  is  not  the  chief  source  of  interest  in  him  as  a 
preacher.  No  worthy  judgment  upon  his  message  even 
is  possible,  much  less  upon  his  significance  as  a  preacher, 
without  a  basis  in  some  knowledge  of  his  strong  and  pro- 
foundly interesting  personality. 

I.  His  physical  endowments  and  appointments  were 
only  in  limited  measure  tributary  to  his  impressiveness 
as  a  preacher.  He  was  of  medium  stature,  without 
bulk  of  figure,  rather  deHcate  in  organization,  yet  lithe 
and  full  of  nerve  force.  In  early  years  he  was  some- 
thing of  an  athlete  and  nearly  to  the  end  of  life  an 
enthusiastic  pedestrian.  In  youth  he  was  remarkable 
for  his  physical  beauty.  He  had  a  handsome  face 
and  a  straight,  agile  frame.  But  in  later  life  he  had 
lost  the  beauty  of  early  years  and  was  thin  and  bony. 
His  voice  had  good  carrying  power,  and  his  vocaliza- 
tion was  easy  and  natural.  But  it  was  notable  neither 
for  strength  nor  richness,  especially  in  later  years.  It 
was  of  medium  tone,  capable  of  great  reach  neither  in 
depth  nor  height,  and  at  last,  owing  to  physical  infirmity, 
wholly  lacking  in  compass.     It  was  not  a  sympathetic 


156       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

voice,  and  lacked  the  power  to  stir  strong,  sympathetic 
emotion,  and  he  was  accustomed  to  use  it  in  a  simple, 
natural  manner.  He  always  uttered  himself  in  free, 
downright,  manly  fashion,  like  a  man  of  prevailingly 
intellectual  habit,  whose  mind  is  full  and  must  free 
itself,  but  rarely  pouring  itself  out  in  impassioned 
utterance  or  attuning  itself  to  the  most  delicate  and 
tender  emotions.  It  was  the  organ  of  his  intellectual 
virility  and  common  sense,  rather  than  of  his  imagina- 
tion or  sentiment  or  feeling,  and  in  ordinary  use  gave 
no  sympathetic  expression  to  his  inward  fervors.  He 
had  studied  oratory  in  college,  and  Demosthenes  was 
his  favorite  orator.  But  he  despised  elocution,  regard- 
ing it  as  meaningless  "mock  oratory,"  and  as  he  dis- 
cusses in  his  commencement  oration  "  Some  Defects 
of  Modern  Oratory,"  one  can  imagine  him  in  his  char- 
acteristic role  of  critic.  He  cared  for  the  rhetoric  and 
logic  of  oratory,  but  not  for  its  vocal  aspects.  The 
result  was  that  he  was  a  natural  speaker  and  so  far 
forth  interesting,  but  lacked  the  oratorical  training 
that  did  so  much  for  Mr.  Beecher.  He  carried  the 
conversational  type  of  speech  into  all  forms  of  utter- 
ance, and  in  private  intercourse  he  was  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  conversationists  of  his  day,  superior  even 
to  Mr.  Beecher  in  intellectual  incisiveness  and  rugged 
energy  of  speech,  but  lacking  Beecher's  passion  and 
pathos  and  flashing  wit.  The  two  men  were  alike  in 
the  simple,  natural,  conversational  basis  of  their  speech, 
but  they  parted  company  when  they  came  to  the  high 
altitudes  of  emotion.  Beecher  soared,  but  Bushnell  kept 
the  "go  afoot"  style  of  vocalization.  Bushnell's  move- 
ments in  the  pulpit  were  not  varied.     They  were  ener- 


HOMILETIC   PERSONALITY  157 

getic,  even  measurably  intense.  But  during  most  of  his 
life  he  was  chained  to  his  manuscript,  and  he  must 
stand  in  one  spot.  There  was  not  a  great  amount  of 
gesture,  and  what  there  was  of  it  was  somewhat  angular 
and  ungraceful.  But  he  was  vigorous  and  had  what  calls 
itself  the  "  magnetic  "  quality.  His  whole  frame  would 
at  times  respond  to  his  mental  and  emotional  intensity, 
while  yet  he  held  himself,  as  to  his  feet,  to  the  one  spot 
in  which  he  had  planted  himself,  as  if  in  dogged  resist- 
ance to  any  conceivable  power  that  would  undertake  to 
dislodge  him,  —  a  sort  of  typical  posture.  There  was  an 
air  of  positiveness,  sometimes  almost  of  defiance,  which 
reminds  us  somewhat  of  Robertson,  in  what  he  said  and 
in  the  way  in  which  he  said  it.  It  was  the  utterance  of 
self-reliant  judgment  and  strong  conviction,  and  some- 
times had  the  appearance  of  dogmatism  and  impatience 
of  contradiction,  —  the  speech  of  an  honest  debater,  who 
is  bent,  not  only  on  interpreting,  but  on  advocating,  the 
truth  he  has  espoused,  and  on  vanquishing  its  adversa- 
ries, whoever  they  may  be.  The  manliness  and  courage 
of  the  man  were  manifest  in  every  tone  of  his  utterance 
and  in  his  very  attitudes  and  movements.  "  His  preach- 
ing had,"  says  his  biographer,  "  in  his  early  days  a  fiery 
quality,  an  urgency  and  wilful  force,  which  in  his  later 
style  is  still  felt  in  the  more  subdued  glow  of  poetic 
imagery.  There  was  a  nervous  insistence  about  his 
person  and  a  peculiar  emphasizing  swing  of  his  right 
arm  from  the  shoulder  which  no  one  who  has  ever 
heard  him  is  likely  to  forget."  But  with  all  his  ner- 
vous intensity,  his  "  verve "  as  the  French  call  it,  his 
poetic  heat,  he  was  always  well-poised  and  self-pos- 
sessed.    The  strong,  steady  mind  and  the  sturdy. will 


158   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

held  him  in,  whatever  the  stress  of  emotion.  His  dress 
was  in  harmony  with  the  character  of  the  man.  He 
never  dressed  his  profession.  He  dressed  the  man. 
There  was  a  certain  respectable  negligence  about  it, 
almost  a  homespun  quality,  in  which  he  evidently  had 
a  certain  satisfaction  and  pride.  He  avoided  the  clerical 
mark.  His  dress  was  like  that  of  an  everyday  man  of 
affairs,  and  it  proclaimed  the  man  among  men.  In 
the  later  years  of  life  his  hair  was  long  and  shaggy, 
always  thrown  back  in  a  sort  of  wild  disorder,  and  well 
adorned  a  head  massive  at  the  top  and  with  a  bold, 
precipitous  front.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  physical 
personaHty,  the  air  of  it  and  the  dress  of  it,  was  sug- 
gestive of  a  certain  noble  freedom  and  self-reHance, 
and  dignity  and  self-respect.  His  manners  were  wholly 
unaffected.  He  was  a  frank  and  friendly  man,  but  he 
had  no  surplus  stock  of  respect  or  deference  to  the 
opinions  of  any  human  being.  For  mere  opinions,  as 
such,  especially  religious  opinions,  he  had  scant  re- 
spect anyway.  They  have  done  great  mischief  in 
theological  controversy,  these  "gaunt  notions,  horning 
and  hoofing  each  other."  For  his  own  opinions,  indeed, 
he  had  a  good  deal  of  respect,  but  he  regarded  them  as 
intuitions  and  moral  convictions,  and  so  to  be  cherished 
on  moral  grounds.  He  would  with  the  utmost  coolness 
and  7iaivete  contradict  you  to  your  face,  if  he  did  not 
agree  with  you.  And  yet  you  would  not,  could  not,  feel 
that  you  were  dealing  with  a  man  who  was  essentially 
rude,  for  in  the  broader  sense  he  was  a  gentleman  in  his 
instincts  and  sympathies.  He  was  an  iconoclast  in  the 
realm  of  manners  only  because  he  was  an  intellectual 
iconoclast.     The  one  supremely  masterful  thing  about 


HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY  159 

his  physical  manhood  was  the  eagle  eye.  There  was 
a  singular  fascination  about  it.  It  held  one  as  by  a 
spell.  When  in  later  years,  in  stress  of  work  and  by 
reason  of  failing  health,  he  was  driven  to  occasional 
extemporaneous  preaching,  the  forces  of  his  physical 
manhood,  although  enfeebled  by  physical  disease,  were 
measurably  liberated ;  and  when  at  his  best  he  made  a 
stronger  immediate  impression  upon  his  audiences  than 
when  chained  to  his  manuscript,  although  there  was  no 
gain  in  the  intellectual  value  of  the  sermon,  and  it 
is  pretty  sure  that  there  would  have  been  no  permanent 
gain  for  his  reputation  or  influence  as  a  preacher,  if  he 
had  followed  the  extemporanous  method.  But  it  is  sure 
that  the  unchained  eye  enhanced  the  power  of  his  oratory. 
It  is  evident,  however,  that  Bushnell's  effectiveness  as  a 
preacher  was  much  less  dependent  upon  the  impressive- 
ness  of  his  physical  personality  than  that  of  many  of  his 
contemporaries. 

2.  Bushnell's  intellectual  gifts,  as  already  suggested, 
singularly  fitted  him  for  the  work  of  the  pulpit.  Per- 
haps the  most  noteworthy  characteristic  of  the  mental 
aspect  of  his  personality  was  his  intellectual  indepen- 
dence. It  was  an  inheritance,  and  it  was  duly  cultivated. 
He  recognized  the  influence  in  his  own  character  and 
career  of  his  paternal  grandmother,  and  he  admired  her 
freedom  of  spirit.  She  had  tried  the  dialectics  of 
Calvinism,  and  "  had  been  so  dreadfully  swamped  in 
getting  her  experience  through  the  five-point  subtleties 
that  she  nearly  went  distracted."  Following  her  own 
independent  spirit  and  relying  upon  her  native  sagacity 
and  spiritual  insight,  she  found  a  way  out  into  the  free- 
dom of  Methodism.     Bushnell's  antipathy  to  Calvinism 


l6o       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

and  his  heroic  faith  in  the  freedom  of  the  human  spirit 
may  have  been  measurably  an  inheritance.  At  any 
rate,  he  had  from  early  years  followed  the  natural  bias 
of  an  independent  mind  and  had  trained  himself  to  look 
inward  and  not  to  other  men  for  guidance  in  the  forma- 
tion of  his  opinions.  Here,  in  the  realm  of  personal 
reflection,  he  grappled  with  august  and  momentous 
problems.  He  knows  it  as  in  large  part  his  errand  in 
life  "  to  find,  to  get  a  knowledge  of  and  to  get  full  pos- 
session of"  himself.  He  undesignedly  describes  him- 
self as  a  student  of  religion  and  of  life  in  the  following 
words  :  "  Some  minds  seem,  from  a  very  early  age,  to 
have  a  strong  adhesiveness  to  whatever  comes  in  con- 
tact with  them.  When  a  subject  enters  the  thoughts, 
it  is  followed  for  hours,  or  perhaps  days,  with  patient, 
laborious  meditation.  In  this  way  they  come  to  an 
astonishing  maturity  without  much  assistance  from 
books.  Now  these  are  the  ethereal  souls  who  are  so 
often  described  as  reasoning  without  reflection  and 
embracing  everything  great  by  a  constitutional  energy. 
Why,  these  men  study  more  in  their  dreams  than  other 
men  by  their  midnight  lamps."  This  "strong  adhesive- 
ness "  and  this  habit  of  **  embracing  everything  great 
by  a  constitutional  energy,"  are  eminently  characteristic 
of  Bushnell,  and  the  terms  are  most  felicitously  descrip- 
tive of  his  peculiarities.  He  thus  formed  the  habit 
"  from  a  very  early  age  "  of  following  the  subject  that 
"enters  the  thoughts  with  patient,  laborious  meditation." 
In  this  way  he  formed  his  own  opinions.  Even  when 
these  opinions  are  in  line  with  those  of  other  men  and 
may  have  become  the  possession  of  many,  they  are 
still  wrought  out  in  his  own  way  and  have  for  him  all 


HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY  i6l 

the  novelty  of  a  strictly  personal  possession.  He  was 
more  inventive  than  investigative.  The  self-reliance 
and  grit  of  his  homespun  New  England  ancestors  were 
perpetuated  in  his  own  intellectual  independence,  and, 
in  his  admiration  for  them,  he  recognizes  them  as  kin- 
dred spirits.  He  had  no  use  for  any  man  "who  could 
not  stand  straight  and  square  upon  his  foundations,  or 
who  wriggled  and  twisted  a  body  supported  on  weak, 
unsteady  columns."  This  independence  of  spirit  ex- 
posed him  to  the  assaults  of  scepticism.  He  formed 
the  debating  habit  of  mind.  All  problems  must  be 
subjected  to  cross-examination  and  cross-questioning. 
But  he  expected  no  adequate  solution  of  his  difficulties 
by  such  cross-questioning.  In  fact,  it  was  his  spiritual 
intuition  that  demanded  the  cross-examination.  His 
distinctive  mental  quality  was  insight.  It  led  him  to 
look  straight  into  the  heart  of  truth,  rather  than  to  take 
the  long  circuit  about  it.  He  was  no  insignificant 
logician.  He  reasoned  with  skill  and  force.  But  his 
characteristic  gift  was  the  penetration  of  the  seer 
rather  than  the  nimbleness  of  the  dialectician.  He 
meant  to  know  realities,  rather  than  to  know  about 
them.  He  saw  quickly,  as  he  felt  intensely.  He  saw 
deeply,  too,  for  the  moral  and  spiritual  activities  take 
men  into  realms  that  are  closed  to  the  mere  dialectician. 
It  was  this  that  saved  him  in  periods  of  intellectual 
doubt.  When  the  logical  faculties  failed  to  bring  the 
solution  sought,  and  when  he  recognized  their  inade- 
quacy to  the  task,  it  was  this  habit  of  looking  directly 
and  steadily  at  the  heart  of  great  questions  that  gave 
intensity  to  his  mental  activities  and  reHef  to  his  moral 
and  spiritual  needs.     The  sermon  on  the  "  Dissolving  of 


l62       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

Doubts  "  describes  his  habit  of  dealing  with  vexed  ques- 
tions. It  is  the  habit  of  a  man  who  learns  by  look- 
ing. He  ''hangs  up  "  his  questions.  He  turns  "a  free 
glance  on  them  now  and  then  as  they  hang."  He  moves 
freely  about  them.  He  looks  at  them  first  on  this  side 
and  then  on  that,  and  then  by  and  by,  as  he  turns  some 
corner  of  thought  in  his  inspection,  he  finds  how  quickly 
and  easily  they  open  their  secret  and  let  him  in.  What 
seemed  insoluble  clears  itself  up  in  a  wondrous  revela- 
tion. This  is  the  method  of  the  seer.  In  it  he  becomes 
"more  deep-seeing."  In  days  when  the  preacher  is 
inclined  to  skirmish  about  the  great  facts  and  truths  of 
religion,  rather  than  to  grapple  with  them  valiantly,  it  is 
refreshing  to  come  into  contact  with  such  a  man  and  to 
note  the  manly  directness  and  vigor  and  lofty  intellectual 
courage  with  which  he,  single-handed,  as  if  he  had  a 
special  call  from  Almighty  God  to  do  it,  grapples  with 
the  profoundest  and  most  august  truths  and  facts  of 
revelation.  Whatever  one  may  think  of  his  success  in 
the  solution  of  his  problem,  or  whatever  one  may  think 
about  his  method,  one, must  at  least  admire  his  spiritual 
and  intellectual  valiancy.  There  is  no  skirmishing  with 
these  problems.  No  skirmish  line  is  known  in  his  intel- 
lectual tactics,  no  polemic  fence  and  attack.  He 
plunges  at  the  objects  of  his  intellectual  grapple,  as  if 
he  has  a  life  and  death  interest  in  them.  He  hovers 
about  them  until  he  is  stirred  by  them.  Then  he 
seizes  them  with  firm  grip.  He  looks  them  through  till 
he  sees  what  should  be  told,  and  then  he  brings  in  his 
report  with  a  tone  so  honest,  so  real,  with  such  ring  of 
truth  about  it,  that  no  one  will  for  a  moment  think  of 
doubting  the  worth  of  it  all,  however  much  he  may 


HOMILETIC   PERSONALITY  163 

question  the  completeness  of  his  vision.  It  was  this 
habit  of  immediate  grappling  with  his  problem  that 
developed  that  self-reliant,  positive,  strenuous,  at  times 
seemingly  arrogant,  but  always  manly,  temper  and  tone 
that  operated  like  a  mental  and  moral  tonic  upon  the 
men  of  his  time,  making  him  the  impressive  and  influ- 
ential man  among  men  that  he  was,  one  of  the  most 
effective  intellectual  leaders  of  his  day.  And  it  was 
precisely  this  quality  that  was  tributary  to  his  distinc- 
tive power  as  a  preacher.  It  yields  one  of  the  most 
distinguishing  traits  of  his  preaching,  its  declarative 
quality.  He  was  a  good  deal  of  an  apologist  in  his  way. 
He  knew  the  arts  of  the  polemist  and  was  even  master 
of  the  philippic.  But  it  is  his  prevailing  habit  to  state 
the  truth  in  a  direct,  positive  manner,  to  promulgate  it 
rather  than  to  reason  about  it.  He  tells  what  he  sees, 
not  what  he  has  excogitated  in  accordance  with  dialec- 
tical processes.  He  hints  at  the  objects  of  his  thought 
by  the  use  of  analogies  largely,  rather  than  elaborately 
elucidates  them  in  logical  order  and  form.  Consequently 
Dr.  Bushnell  was  never  a  doctrinal  preacher  in  the 
sense  of  that  term  common  in  his  day.  He  was  emi- 
nently a  didactic  preacher.  His  sermons  are  freighted 
with  weighty  truth.  He  was  much  more  at  home  in 
the  discussion  of  a  weighty  subject  than  any  preacher 
of  his  day.  His  preaching  had  a  more  solid  quality, 
and  aggregated  a  larger  amount  of  important  truth, 
than  that  of  Beecher  or  Brooks.  All  of  these  preachers 
were  ingenious  in  homiletic  suggestion.  They  spoke  to 
the  imagination  and  stirred  an  emotional  interest  in  the 
truths  discussed.  But  Bushnell  has  the  greater  strength. 
His   themes   always   contain   a   strong   religious  truth 


1 64      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

which  is  formally  stated.  He  must  always  have  some- 
thing large  and  important  to  discuss.  He  therefore 
takes  a  theme  with  a  complex  of  thoughts,  which  is 
capable  of  being  thrown  into  the  form  of  a  proposition ; 
and  it  generally  is  thrown  into  that  form,  a  form  fitted 
to  the  work  of  thorough  exposition  and  discussion. 
This  puts  the  sermon  at  the  very  outset  upon  a  strongly 
didactic  basis.  He  is  from  the  first  committed  to  the 
work  of  interpreting  and  supporting  the  truth  enun- 
ciated. If  we  look  at  the  topics  used  in  his  discussion, 
we  find  them  to  be  preeminently  the  teaching  topics,  — 
topics,  that  is,  that  are  adapted  to  the  setting  forth  of 
the  thought  relations  of  the  subject,  topics  that  serve  to 
increase  knowledge  of  the  subject  and  perpetuate  a 
strong  mental  impression.  They  are  didactic  phases  of 
the  theme,  which  is  complex  in  character  as  containing 
a  large  group  of  allied  thoughts.  And  this  whole  com- 
plex theme-thought  appears  in  the  process  of  discussion. 
The  theme,  however  complex,  pervades  the  whole  ser- 
mon, and  no  one  is  ever  at  a  loss  to  know  what  is  in 
discussion.  The  progress  is  orderly  and  well-marked, 
and  the  entire  sermon  has  a  noble  unity  and  symmetry. 
Other  parts  of  the  sermon  disclose  the  same  didactic 
character.  The  introduction  is  from  the  outset  sugges- 
tive of  the  instructive  quality  of  the  sermon.  It  is  the 
explanatory  introduction,  showing  the  connection  be- 
tween text  and  theme  and  bridging  the  way  from  the 
one  to  the  other.  The  conclusion  is  practical  in  its  char- 
acter, yet  it  still  perpetuates  the  didactic  interest,  fur- 
thering the  mental  impression  already  made,  giving  the 
subject  a  new  turn,  showing  the  truth  from  a  new  angle, 
and  is  almost  always   in  the   form  of  inference   from 


HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY  165 

the  subject  discussed.  The  sermon  is  to  a  consider- 
able extent  Biblical.  He  was  not  an  expository  preacher 
as  Robertson  was.  But  his  preaching  always  attached 
itself  to  Biblical  religion,  and  he  always  discusses 
his  Biblical  truth  in  a  positive  manner  corresponding 
to  the  declarative  method  of  Biblical  revelation.  But 
the  point  just  here  is  that,  although  preeminently  a 
didactic  preacher,  dealing  with  the  solid  substance  of 
Biblical  truth,  his  method  of  discussion  is  the  practically 
suggestive  method.  It  is  the  declaratory,  the  affirma- 
tory,  the  promulging,  method  that  comes  home  sug- 
gestively to  the  experiences  of  men,  adducing  those 
considerations  that  appeal,  not  to  abstract  thought,  but 
to  common  sense,  common  conscience,  common  feeling, 
and  common  observation,  and  that  touch  the  realities  of 
human  life. 

3.  Bushneirs  artistic  gifts  should  be  noted  here,  for 
they  were  effectively  tributary  to  his  work  as  a  preacher. 
With  Puritan  robustness  there  was  allied  a  delicacy  that 
was  not  the  less  Puritan  when,  as  in  his  case,  Puritanism 
was  at  its  best.  His  thought  fell  naturally  into  the 
form  and  took  the  color  that  is  furnished  by  the  imagi- 
nation. It  is  his  theory,  carried  through  life  from  col- 
lege days,  that  revelation  can  be  given  only  through  the 
imagination.  At  what  time,  in  what  ways,  or  under 
what  specific  influences  he  was  led  to  the  position  that 
the  human  understanding  is  incompetent  to  deal  suc- 
cessfully with  the  problems  of  religion,  and  that 
consequently  a  theology  or  a  philosophy  of  religion  is 
impossible,  but  that  only  such  approximation  is  possible 
as  is  furnished  by  the  image-making  faculty  of  the  soul, 
is  uncertain.     Criticism  of  the  traditional  theology  not 


l66       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

only,  but  of  its  traditional  philosophic  basis,  had  already 
in  this  country  gained  a  hearing  in  his  early  years  ;  and 
perhaps  the  influence  of  Coleridge,  whom  in  his  college 
days  he  found  "foggy  and  unintelligible,"  but  subse- 
quently **  lucid  and  instructive,"  may  be  recognized. 
One  of  his  Hartford  friends  says  of  him,  "  I  have  often 
heard  him  say  that  he  was  more  indebted  to  Coleridge 
than  to  any  extra-Scriptural  author."  By  what  specific 
influence  he  was  led  to  adopt  the  theory  of  the  inade- 
quacy of  language  to  express  and  interpret  religious 
truth  is  also  uncertain.  Possibly  the  new  historic  and 
literary  spirit  that  had  been  awakened  in  the  early  part 
of  the  century  had  wrought  productively  upon  his  artis- 
tic nature  and  had  realized  in  him  its  earliest  fruitage, 
leading  him  to  look  upon  the  Scriptures  as  a  form  of 
religious  Uterature,  rather  than  as  a  body  of  doctrine  or 
a  ''  codex  of  legislation."  Of  this  there  are  some  indi- 
cations, although  they  are  somewhat  obscure.  But 
however  it  came  about,  the  positiveness  of  his  conviction 
touching  this  matter  is  sure.  He  was  not  very  consist- 
ent in  his  repudiation  of  theology  and  denial  of  its 
possibilities,  as  has  already  been  suggested,  for  he  had 
a  theology  of  his  own  and  was  a  firm  believer  in  it. 
Nor  did  he  apply  his  theory  of  language  very  consist- 
ently, for  it  is  an  instrument  for  setting  forth  his  own 
theological  conceptions,  and  although  it  had  not  scien- 
tific precision,  it  had  an  accuracy  of  representation  that 
was  adequate  to  the  purpose  of  expressing  with  singular 
lucidity  often  the  most  occult  and  difficult  theological 
conceptions.  In  fact,  he  played  fast  and  loose  with  his 
theory.  Failing  to  recognize  a  relative  permanence  of 
significance  in  the   secondary  stage  of  language,  that 


HOMILETIC   PERSONALITY  167 

has  long  since  passed  the  early  and  representative  stage 
of  its  meaning,  he  was  accustomed,  after  the  manner  of 
Coleridge,  to  deal  with  its  original  and  etymological 
significance,  thus  involving  the  discussion  in  the  network 
of  his  own  fancies  and  throwing  confusion  into  it.  But 
it  must  be  confessed  that,  after  all,  this  was  tributary  to 
his  attractiveness  and  force  as  a  preacher.  This  use  of 
the  representative  faculty  not  only  conditioned  his 
method  of  conceiving  and  of  interpreting  the  truth,  in- 
clining him  to  the  use  of  the  analogical  method  of  inter- 
pretation, but  it  colored  his  diction.  In  this  lies  the 
attractiveness  of  his  style,  which  has  the  qualities  of 
descriptive  clearness  and  concentrated  strength.  It 
leads  him  often  into  fancifulness,  but  it  never  fails,  even 
in  his  most  insubstantial  imaginings,  to  hold  our  interest, 
even  though  it  may  not  command  our  judgment.  There 
was  a  time  when  he  came  to  a  new  literary  awakening, 
which  was  not  altogether  unhke  his  later  ethical  and 
spiritual  awakening,  and  in  this  we  may  detect  the  influ- 
ence of  Coleridge.  He  began,  as  he  tells  us,  with  the 
plain  **go  afoot"  style  of  Paley.  But  after  reading 
Coleridge's  "  Aids  to  Reflection  "  for  a  whole  half-year, 
he  got  a  new  idea  of  the  power  of  language.  It  was  its 
power  of  figurative  representation,  and  as  a  result  he 
says,  "  My  powers  seemed  to  be  more  than  doubled." 
Among  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  modern  preach- 
ing is  its  temperate  use  of  figurative  language.  On  the 
one  side,  we  have  a  reaction  from  the  theological,  philo- 
sophical, and  dialectical  type  of  preaching,  with  its 
preponderance  of  abstract  thought  and  prevalence  of 
abstract  terminology,  in  favor  of  a  type  of  preaching  in 
which  feeling  and  imagination  have  free  play.     This 


l68       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

results  in  an  increase  in  the  use  of  figurative  language. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  see  a  reaction  from  the  exuber- 
ant use  of  figurative  language  that  characterized  classi- 
cal rhetoric.  Classical  oratory  appealed  largely  to  the 
emotions,  and  the  discussion  of  rhetorical  figures  was  a 
disproportionately  important  part  of  the  older  treatises 
on  rhetoric.  It  was  the  figurative  type  of  language  that 
appealed  to  emotion  and  passion.  Modern  rhetoric 
deals  more  with  the  intellectual  aspects  of  language. 
It  lays  stress  upon  the  importance  of  intellectual  con- 
vincement.  It  accentuates  the  didactic  element.  This 
results  in  a  temperate  use  of  figurative  language.  The 
modern  orator  uses  but  relatively  few  figures  of  speech, 
and  modern  works  on  rhetoric  abridge  the  discussion  of 
figurative  language.  Figures  of  speech  that  are  adapted 
to  the  excitation  of  high-wrought  emotion,  Hke  apostro- 
phe, vision,  the  stately  figure  of  hyperbole,  and  many  of 
the  grammatical  figures  that  were  prominent  in  classical 
rhetoric  and  in  the  oratory  of  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries,  are  less  frequent.  The  figures  used  by 
the  modern  orator  are  largely  with  reference  to  making 
the  subject  discussed  clearer  and  more  forcible.  They 
are  largely  figures  of  resemblance,  and  are  verbal  rather 
than  grammatical,  belonging  to  vocabulary  rather  than 
to  syntax.  The  metaphor,  which  is  tributary  to  clear- 
ness and  force,  is  more  common  than  the  simile,  which  is 
adapted  to  the  more  stately,  ornate,  and  elaborate  style, 
like  that  of  Jeremy  Taylor.  This  suggests  the  prevail- 
ingly didactic  character  of  modern  preaching,  and  at 
the  same  time  its  freedom  from  the  prosaic  dulness  of 
the  old  dogmatic  type  of  preaching.  Dr.  Bushnell's 
style  of  preaching  is  an  illustration  of  this  in  an  eminent 


HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY  169 

degree.  His  rhetorical  figures  are  few  in  number  and 
not  very  varied.  Metaphor  and  simile  —  and  that  the 
condensed  simile,  with  metonymy  —  are  the  chief  fig- 
ures. The  figures  of  passion  are  rare.  There  is  but 
little  exclamation  and  exaggeration,  and  no  high-flying 
apostrophe  or  vision.  His  figures  are  natural.  They 
grow  out  of  the  thought,  and  there  is  nothing  strained 
or  artificial  about  them.  But  they  are  strong  and  im- 
pressive. His  use  of  the  imagination  appears  in  his 
vocabulary.  It  is  this  that  secures  color,  imparting  to 
his  utterance  a  warmth  and  semi-poetic  glow,  suggesting 
more  than  is  asserted.  His  vocabulary  has  not  the 
range  and  variety  of  Mr.  Beecher's.  He  has  not  for- 
aged so  widely  in  different  fields  of  knowledge  for 
treasure  wherewith  to  enrich  his  vocabulary.  It  is, 
however,  the  vocabulary  of  the  preacher,  which  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  must  be  a  somewhat  limited  vocabu- 
lary. For,  however  widely  the  preacher  may  range  in 
his  studies  and  investigations,  —  and  Dr.  Bushnell  did 
not  range  very  widely,  —  he  must  put  the  result  of  his 
knowledge  and  culture  into  the  language  of  common 
life,  at  least  into  a  type  of  diction  that  will  be  readily 
apprehended  by  the  common  people.  The  result  is 
that  the  sources  of  the  preacher's  vocabulary  are  likely 
to  be  less  manifest  than  those  of  men  in  other  profes- 
sions. There  is,  however,  a  great  difference  in  preach- 
ers in  this  regard.  Some  disclose  the  sources  of  their 
vocabulary  more  readily  than  others.  It  is  one  of  the 
characteristics  of  Dr.  Bushnell  that  he  puts  the  mark  of 
his  own  personality  upon  the  product  of  his  knowledge 
more  fully  than  most  preachers.  He  shows,  therefore, 
the  results  of  his  training  and  culture  quite  as  much  in 


170      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

the  facility  with  which  he  handles  his  themes,  in  his 
penetration  and  grip  and  range  and  general  strength  of 
mental  movement,  as  in  his  diction.  But  there  is  one 
noteworthy  quality  in  it  that  may  well  receive  attention. 
It  is  the  descriptive  vocabulary.  It  is  not  ornate,  nor 
highly  pictorial.  It  is  soberly  descriptive.  It  represents 
the  objects  of  thought  as  they  appear  to  the  imagination. 
It  is  a  descriptive  quality  peculiar  to  himself.  His  mark 
is  on  it.  His  theological  terms  are  descriptive.  He 
scrupulously  avoids  all  technical  theological  terms. 
He  seems  to  have  almost  a  morbid  dislike  of  them. 
He  puts  the  thought  that  is  behind  the  term  into  some 
word  descriptive  of  it.  Regeneration,  for  example,  he 
described  by  the  term  "  naturalization."  This  is  a  mani- 
festation of  his  analogical  habit  of  mind.  It  sometimes 
leads  him  astray.  He  undertakes,  for  example,  to  use 
the  English  word  "atonement"  in  its  etymological  sense 
of  at-one-ment.  In  thus  describing  or  undertaking  to 
describe  the  truth  of  the  atonement  by  the  analogy  of 
the  original  English  word,  he  loses  or  ignores  its  real 
significance  as  it  has  appeared  in  the  history  of  theology. 
What  is  true  in  his  use  of  theological  terms  is  also  true 
of  his  use  of  philosophical  terms.  All  such  terms  are 
changed  into  popular  descriptive  terms.  His  vocabu- 
lary indicates  familiarity  with  nature,  art,  trade,  and  in- 
dustry, and  he  uses  the  terms  that  are  brought  from 
these  departments  with  great  force  and  accuracy.  His 
diction  is  largely  the  language  of  energetic  movement, 
that  contributes  force  to  his  style.  He  uses  the  prepo- 
sition or  the  adverb  in  connection  with  words  that  sug- 
gest physical  action,  in  describing  the  objects  of  his 
thought.     He   has  us   "shaken   out   of   our  prayers." 


HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY  171 

Our  "crust  is  broken  up."  "God  turns  us  about  and 
beats  us  back."  We  "  stay  by  our  evil  mind."  The 
"church  slides  into  the  world."  Such  a  style  has 
movement  and  life.  There  is  an  interesting  blending  of 
the  reflective,  the  practical,  and  the  poetic  in  his  preach- 
ing. The  thought  is  that  of  an  original,  reflective  mind  ; 
the  subject,  the  method,  and  the  aim  are  practical;  the 
style  is  semi-poetic.  This  yields  a  blending  of  elements 
that  are  tributary  at  once  to  interest  and  effectiveness. 

4.  His  ethical  gifts  still  more  manifestly  fitted  him 
for  preeminent  pulpit  effectiveness.  His  most  impres- 
sive ethical  quality,  perhaps,  was  personal  will  force. 
He  bore  the  mark  of  it  in  his  entire  personal  bearing, 
his  attitudes,  movements,  gestures,  tones  of  voice,  and 
the  glance  of  his  eye.  His  whole  life,  from  its  begin- 
ning to  its  end,  bore  witness  to  it.  He  was  constitu- 
tionally independent,  self-asserting,  and  fearless.  He 
belonged  to  a  race  from  which  this  ethical  forcefulness 
came  to  him  as  an  inheritance.  It  was  a  strength  tem- 
pered by  dehcacy  and  grace,  but  it  was  preeminently  a 
strong  race.  The  same  manly  courage  and  tenacity  of 
purpose  which  he  showed  in  fighting  his  own  doubts 
showed  itself  also  in  facing  the  contradictions  of  men 
in  defence  of  his  faith  and  conviction,  in  his  grapple 
with  the  great  problems  of  existence  and  the  great  facts 
and  truths  of  Christian  revelation,  and  in  his  last  long 
fight  with  disease  and  finally  with  death.  As  far  back  as 
1837,  when  he  was  only  thirty-seven  years  old,  he  spoke 
of  the  threatening  disease  with  which  he  struggled 
all  through  his  professional  life,  as  hanging  about  him 
and  of  his  fear  that  it  would  get  a  deeper  hold  of 
him.     It  was  a  manly  fight  under  great  burdens,  and  it 


172   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

is  amazing  that  under  such  physical  limitations  he  should 
have  accomplished  so  much.  He  kept  in  good  cheer, 
often  making  light  of  his  burdens  and  exhibiting  an 
oversensitiveness  about  his  physical  weakness  even  up 
to  the  last,  refusing  sturdily  to  accept  the  proffered 
assistance  of  others  to  support  his  tottering  steps.  He 
would  "  stand  on  his  own  legs  "  to  the  end.  This  force 
of  will  he  threw  into  his  preaching.  It  was  one  of  the 
great  elements  of  power  in  his  oratory  of  which  alto- 
gether too  little  has  been  ma.de  in  men's  estimate  of  him. 
There  was  a  strong  contagion  in  his  downrightness  and 
positiveness.  It  was  an  intellectual  and  moral  tonic. 
He  carried  men  even  against  their  will.  He  subdued 
them  by  the  force  of  his  personality ;  men  rebelled 
against  his  teaching  and  antagonized  his  influence  and 
shouted  an  alarm  against  him,  only  to  find  themselves 
vanquished  in  the  end,  it  would  be  difficult  to  tell  just 
how.  They  quarrelled  with  him  and  tried  to  suppress 
him,  but  they  never  succeeded  in  silencing  him  or  in 
putting  him  down.  Friends  were  alienated  fronr  him 
and  years  of  distrust  and  heartburnings  followed ;  but 
they  yielded  their  wills  at  last  to  the  force  of  his  per- 
sonal manhood,  and  he  won  back  their  hearts,  while  they 
may  have  refused  to  yield  mental  assent  to  his  teach- 
ings. That  he  held  his  own,  not  only  in  his  own  denomi- 
nation, but  in  his  own  church,  and  was  not  immolated 
by  his  enemies,  was  due  quite  as  much  to  his  masterful 
handling  of  himself  and  of  other  men  in  days  of  detrac- 
tion and  misrepresentation,  as  to  the  support  of  wise 
and  large-minded  men  to  whom  all  honor  is  due  for 
defending  the  freedom  of  Christian  teaching  among  the 
Congregational  churches  of  the  state  of  Connecticut. 


HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY  173 

Bushnell  was  not  understood.  His  method  was  new  to 
the  men  of  his  time.  He  was  breaking  away  from  the 
old  path  and  breaking  out  a  new  path  for  the  theology 
and  the  preaching  of  New  England,  and  men  did  not 
take  kindly  to  it.  His  method  is  now  a  commonplace, 
and  largely  through  him  a  free  possession  of  the  Ameri- 
can pulpit.  But  the  dogmatic  and  dialectical  method 
held  the  field  in  his  day,  and  men  who  cherish  such 
method  as  sacred  do  not  understand  the  poet  and  mys- 
tic who  invades  their  precincts.  Men  of  routine  and  of 
the  estabhshed  order,  who  have  no  vision,  stand  in  dread 
of  the  iconoclast.  Men  sought  to  bring  Dr.  Bushnell 
to  book,  but  when  they  laid  hands  on  him,  and  he  grap- 
pled with  them,  they  felt  the  muscle  of  an  athlete,  and 
they  became  shy  of  trying  conclusions  with  him.  He 
did  not  prefer  to  fight.  He  was  not  so  "  strenuous  "  as 
to  love  fighting  for  his  own  sake.  He  shrank  from  it,  in 
fact.  He  was  much  more  intent  on  estabhshing  the 
truth,  as  he  understood  it,  than  on  fighting  down  error. 
But  he  had  the  fist  of  a  pugilist.  He  was  ready  for  any 
man  at  any  reasonable  hour  and  in  any  rational  method 
of  combat,  and  when  pushed  to  it,  he  handled  weapons 
that  were  a  terror  to  his  adversaries.  Like  Robertson, 
he  was  a  born  leader  of  men.  Considering  the  time  into 
which  he  was  cast,  when  men  of  light  and  leading 
had  become  dissatisfied  with  the  traditional  defences  of 
religion  and  had  begun  to  discern  from  the  high  sum- 
mits of  their  observation  the  methods  of  a  new  day ; 
considering  his  own  high  altitude,  standing  on  his  own 
solitary  peak,  with  the  vision  of  the  new  dawn  in  his  face  ; 
considering  his  own  intellectual  inquisitiveness,  his  keen- 
ness of  insight,  his  literary  instincts,  his  independence 


174       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

of  spirit  and  his  indomitable  courage,  —  it  was  impossible 
that  he  should  not  be  a  theological  iconoclast.  He  did 
a  revolutionary  work,  and  he  has  had  a  larger  following 
than  even  he  ever  could  have  dreamed  of.  His  influence 
has  been  so  strong  that  to-day  he  has  his  innings,  and 
it  has  been  so  silent  that  the  men  who  are  now  domesti- 
cated in  a  new  order  hardly  realize  what  they  owe  him. 
Men  who  do  not  accept  all  of  his  results,  and  it  is  not 
necessary  that  any  man  should  do  this,  accept  substan- 
tially his  method  and  his  spirit  and  know  their  worth  for 
the  pulpit  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  claim  that  upon 
the  more  thoughtful  and  cultivated  and  better-trained 
men  especially,  as  well  as  the  truer  and  more  genuine 
spirits  of  the  American  pulpit,  he  has  had  a  stronger 
influence  even  than  Mr.  Beecher.  The  above-named 
qualities  of  his  personality,  the  physical,  intellectual, 
artistic,  were  all  dominated  and  fused  and  fired  by  the 
energies  of  his  masterful  will.  And  it  was  this  combina- 
tion that  yielded  one  of  the  most  notable  qualities  of  his 
preaching,  namely,  its  vitality.  His  preaching  is  alive 
all  through.  There  is  a  vitality  in  his  style  that  bears 
the  mark  even  of  his  physical  intensity.  It  is  vital  with 
the  movement  of  vivid  imaginative  representation  and 
with  strong  emotion.  It  is  intellectually  alive.  We 
feel  the  presence  of  a  strong,  virile  mind.  The  ruling 
thought  of  the  sermon  vitalizes  the  whole  organism. 
There  is  no  let-up  in  the  tension  of  mental  energy.  It 
is  sustained  force.  The  subject  is  grasped  as  with  the 
energy  of  life,  and  into  it  is  poured  a  flood  of  ethical 
and  emotional  and  spiritual  force.  Here  are  the  words 
of  a  man  who  means  what  he  says  and  all  he  says,  and 
nothing  other  than  what  he  says,  and  has  felt  the  power 


HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY  175 

of  what  he  says  ;  else  who  could  say  it  as  he  says  it,  or 
who  feel  it  as  we  feel  it  ?  It'  is  singularly  real.  No 
second-hand  religion  or  theology  here,  and  no  half-con- 
viction or  professional  emotion.  The  organism  of  the 
sermon  is  fresh  with  life.  It  is  charged  with  the  force 
of  the  personality  of  the  preacher.  No  homiletic  hotch- 
potch here.  The  style  has  the  vitality  of  intellectual 
clarity  and  accuracy,  of  ethical,  emotional,  and  spirit- 
ual force,  and  of  imaginative  suggestiveness.  This 
vitality  discloses  itself  in  his  intellectual  productive- 
ness, notwithstanding  his  Ufelong  struggle  with  physical 
infirmity.  His  mind  was  always  at  work.  Subjects 
were  perpetually  crowding  in  upon  him.  They  were 
so  numerous  that  they  must  wait,  be  put  aside,  **  hung 
up,"  for  future  investigation.  He  was  never  hard  put 
for  something  to  say.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  agonies 
of  mental  and  moral  poverty.  This  same  vital  quality 
disclosed  itself  in  the  rapidity  of  his  mental  movement. 
His  quickest  work,  he  says  as  far  back  as  1839,  is  his 
best  work.  Not  because  it  was  quickest,  but  because 
it  was  the  outcome  of  a  mind  intensely  active  and  that 
took  vigorous  hold  of  subjects  that  came  before  it,  so 
that  the  accumulated  results  of  past  hours  of  thought 
came  rapidly  to  fruitage.  It  showed  itself  in  his 
quick,  pungent,  vivacious  answers  to  questions  which, 
anticipating  the  modern  question-drawer  method,  were 
dropped  into  a  box  at  the  door  of  his  church  lecture- 
room  and  which  were  sometimes  answered  impromptu 
from  the  desk.  It  showed  itself  in  his  conversation,  in 
his  talks  at  the  club,  in  which  he  was  recognized  as 
facile  princeps.  It  was  an  event  much  to  be  coveted 
and  long  to  be  remembered  to  hear  him  pour  himself 


176      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

out  in  his  fulness  when  he  was  at  his  best.  Few  men 
have  matched  him  in  the*art  of  pungent  colloquy.  This 
vitality,  perhaps,  gave  him  a  drawing  towards  the  West, 
where  he  mistakenly  imagined  his  work  might  be  better 
appreciated,  an  impulse  which  he  never  wholly  lost. 
And  yet  New  England  was  his  proper  sphere.  It  is 
altogether  doubtful  if  elsewhere  Bushnell  would  ever 
have  found  a  basis  for  the  wide-reaching  influence  he 
has  exerted.  The  thought  of  the  age  was  almost, 
although  unconsciously,  ready  for  him,  and  New  Eng- 
land was  the  true  centre  for  the  exercise  of  his  intel- 
lectual leadership. 

5.  It  remains  to  consider  the  religious  element  in  his 
personality  as  related  to  his  power  as  a  preacher.  Bush- 
nell, like  Robertson,  was  gifted  with  capacious  and  re- 
fined religious  sensibilities.  In  either  case  it  reached 
the  measure  of  religious  genius.  In  either  case  it  was 
an  inheritance.  It  both  cases  it  was  nurtured  under 
the  favoring  conditions  of  evangelical  piety  from  early 
days,  and  the  fruit  of  it  remained  to  latest  years.  If 
Robertson's  piety  was  the  more  emotional  and  affec- 
tional  and  his  early  evangelicalism  of  the  more  pro- 
nounced type,  Bushnell's  was  not  the  less  real  and 
enduring.  Bushnell  early  developed  a  more  distinc- 
tively intellectual  and  rational  type  of  religious  character 
than  Robertson,  and  it  was  more  distinctively  ethical  as 
a  form  of  religious  experience.  It  was,  therefore,  more 
closely  allied  to  what  called  itself  in  his  early  days  "  the 
religion  of  nature."  The  early  conditions  of  his  life 
tended  to  foster  a  certain  ethical  austerity,  and  the 
inquisitiveness  and  independence  of  his  mind  tended  to 
the  development  of  the  rational  element  in  his  religion. 


HOMILETIC  PERSONALITY-  177 

But  from  the  first  he  was  at  heart  a  mystic,  and  no 
form  of  rationalism  or  of  moralism  coiild  claim  him. 
Even  in  childhood  he  had  not  only  the  poet's  but  the 
mystic's  eye  for  nature,  and  he  reached  out  into  fellow- 
ship with  it  "  in  a  sense  of  the  divine  beauty  and  maj- 
esty "  that  allured  him.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that 
it  was  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  college  that  he  "  was  to 
think  himself  out  of  his  over-thinking,  and  discover  how 
far  above  reason  is  trust."  It  was  by  following  the 
mystical  tendency  which  was  native  to  him  that  he  was 
led,  when  a  tutor  in  college,  to  exclaim :  "  I  am  glad  I 
have  a  heart  as  well  as  a  head ;  my  heart  wants  the 
Father ;  my  heart  wants  the  Son ;  my  heart  wants  the 
Holy  Ghost  —  and  one  just  as  much  as  the  other."  And 
here  was  his  anchorage  ground  and  the  stay  of  his 
religious  Hfe.  He  was  not  inclined  to  the  work  of  the 
ministry.  He  had  studied  law  and  was  preparing  to 
enter  a  law  office  at  the  West.  He  had  something  the 
same  struggle  with  himself  with  respect  to  entering  the 
ministry  that  Robertson  had.  With  Robertson  the  diffi- 
culty was  largely  a  sense  of  spiritual  unfitness  and  the 
attractions  of  a  more  active  life  that  appealed  to  his 
imagination.  With  Bushnell  it  seems  to  have  been  the 
attractions  of  the  legal  profession.  This  was  in  line 
with  his  questioning  and  debating  habit  of  mind,  with 
his  previous  studies,  and  with  his  interest  in  public 
affairs.  The  influence  of  his  religious  difficulties  may 
also  be  seen  here.  In  either  case  it  was  a  letter  that 
decided  the  question.  In  the  case  of  Robertson  it  was 
a  letter  from  a  neighbor.  In  the  case  of  Bushnell  it 
was  a  letter  from  Yale  College.  Both  of  these  princely 
men  entered  the  ministry  oppressed  with  a  certain  sense 


178   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

of  unfitness.  It  is  a  very  noteworthy  fact  that  many 
men,  who  have  proved  themselves  to  be,  as  we  say, 
"  born  preachers,"  men  who  in  all  ways  were  fitted  for  the 
work  of  the  ministry,  men  most  devoutly  conscientious 
and  spiritually  minded,  and  who  have  exerted  a  most 
powerful  influence  in  their  day,  have  had  this  shrinking 
sense  of  unfitness.  The  instances  are  numerous.  It  is 
noteworthy,  too,  that  in  every  case  —  and  in  these  two 
cases  preeminently  —  they  have  risen  superior  to  it,  and 
the  very  shrinking  seems  to  have  been  a  condition  of 
the  greater  power.  Bushnell  had  something  the  same 
struggle  with  mental  difficulties  that  Robertson  had.  It 
came  earlier  than  Robertson's,  but  they  met  and  van- 
quished their  difficulties  in  much  the  same  way.  They 
met  them  on  moral  and  religious,  not  on  speculative, 
grounds.  It  was  in  1829  that  Bushnell  came  to  Yale 
College  as  tutor,  where  he  remained  for  two  years.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  church,  had  been  religiously 
trained  at  home,  and  for  four  years  had  lived  under  the 
Christian  influences  of  the  college,  but  he  came  a 
doubter.  He  was,  as  we  have  seen,  constitutionally  a 
questioner.  His  intense  intellectual  activity  kept  him 
perpetually  agitating  difficult  questions.  His  religious 
inclinations,  sympathies,  and  habits  brought  this  activity 
to  bear  upon  religious  questions.  His  self-reliant  nature 
led  him  to  undertake  the  clearing  up  of  these  difficulties 
in  his  own  way,  and  he  took  but  few  into  his  counsels. 
During  his  tutorship  there  was  a  religious  awakening 
in  the  college.  He  was  at  first  unmoved  or  seemed  to 
be  unmoved  by  it.  At  last,  however,  he  began  to  see 
and  feel  his  responsibility  as  a  teacher,  for  he  had,  and 
knew  that  he  had,  a  strong  influence  over  his  pupils. 


HOMILETIC   PERSONALITY  179 

The  result  was  that  he  invited  some  of  the  young  men 
whom  he  most  strongly  influenced  to  his  room,  and 
then  and  there  he  told  them  the  position  he  proposed  to 
take.  "  The  result  was  overwhelming  ;  "  they  all  broke 
down  together.  It  was  the  turn  of  the  tide  for  him  as 
for  them,  and  it  was  an  hour  big  with  import  for  the 
pulpit  of  New  England.  Its  most  commanding  religious 
genius  and  one  of  its  brightest  ornaments  had  been 
won.  It  is  a  profoundly  interesting  story.  And  it 
might  be  worth  while  to  pause  here  and  note  the  value 
of  a  strong  moral  basis  for  the  Christian  life.  Bushnell 
was  conscious  of  the  processes  of  his  religious  develop- 
ment and  he  clearly  traces  the  four  stages  of  it.^  The 
first  is  the  period  of  natural  religion,  when  he  was  led 
"  socially  and  by  force  of  the  blind  religious  instinct  of 
his  nature."  The  second  was  the  period  of  ethical 
religion,  when  he  "  was  advanced  into  the  clear  moral 
light  of  Chri:>t  and  of  God,  as  related  to  the  principle  of 
rectitude."  The  third  and  fourth  were  the  periods  of 
spiritual  religion.  They  are  those  periods  in  which 
Christ  was  revealed  more  perfectly  and  through  him  the 
nature  and  character  of  God  as  self-reveaUng  love  in 
sacrifice.  At  the  time  above  mentioned,  Bushnell  was 
evidently  emerging  from  the  first  into  the  second  stage 
of  his  religious  development.  Here  was  a  man  who  was 
held  by  his  conscience.  This  seemingly  was  the  chief 
thing  that  anchored  him,  till  God  in  grace  could  do  his 
larger  and  better  work  within  him.  It  was  good,  strong 
anchorage  ground  and  God  held  him  to  it  and  by  it  till 
with  Fatherly  grace  He  could  pour  fresh  light  and  life 
into  his  large,  open  soul.     This  ethical  element  in  his 

1 "  Life  and  Letters,"  p.  445. 


l80       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

religion  was  always  present.  It  tempered  his  emotions 
and  had  a  strong  influence  upon  his  thinking  and  preach- 
ing. It  was  this  ethical  experience  of  religion  largely 
that  fitted  him  to  deal  with  men  who  were  troubled  with 
intellectual  difficulties.  He  lays  down  two  rules  that 
governed  him  and  should  govern  every  man.  First, 
perfect  honesty  in  the  formation  of  opinions  and  prin- 
ciples of  action.  "  It  is  one  thing,"  he  says,  "  to  take  a 
position  and  use  reason  to  defend  it,  and  another  to  use 
reason  in  selecting  a  position.  In  the  one  case  reason 
obeys  the  will;  in  the  other,  will  obeys  the  reason." 
Another  rule  is  never  to  swerve  in  conduct  from  honest 
conviction.  "  Decide  because  there  are  reasons  for 
deciding,  and  then  act  because  the  decision  is  made." 
By  these  rules  he  governed  his  whole  life.  Therefore, 
the  rational  and  ethical  elements  in  his  religion  are 
always  present  even  though  they  may  often  appear 
under  highly  mystical  forms.  His  sermons  have  the 
strong  rational  and  moral  ring  of  a  man  who  is  true  to 
the  core  of  life.  Another  suggestion  from  the  early 
experience  of  Bushnell  is  the  value  of  the  religious 
revival  of  the  right  sort  in  the  rescue  of  men  from 
scepticism.  He  was  not  a  believer  in  the  revival  method 
for  the  ordering  of  church  life,  and  took  strong  ground 
against  it,  although  he  participated  in  revival  move- 
ments and  some  of  his  most  effective  extemporaneous 
addresses  were  made  in  connection  with  them.  And 
his  own  experiences  demonstrate  the  power  of  a  great 
religious  awakening  in  a  time  of  intellectual  dislodg- 
ment  to  save  sceptical  men.  This  religious  awakening 
influenced  him  by  taking  hold  of  his  moral  nature,  and 
the  influence  is  noted  by  him  in  an  autobiographical 


HOMILETIC   PERSONALITY  i8l 

reference  in  a  sermon  preached  in  Yale  College  Chapel 
entitled,  **  The  Dissolving  of  Doubts."  ^  Now,  this 
experience  lies  back  of  and  is  seen  in  its  indirect  influ- 
ence on  his  preaching.  Of  course  it  is  not  necessary 
that  every  man  should  have  just  this  sort  and  measure 
of  experience  in  order  to  become  a  helpful  preacher, 
although  in  Bushnell's  case  it  is  questionable  whether 
he  would  ever  have  reached  his  full  measure  of  power 
without  it.  But  in  general  it  is  pertinent  to  suggest 
that  it  will  be  a  dark  day  for  the  church,  if  young  men, 
who  find  themselves  perplexed  by  the  problems  of 
religion  and  theology  and  have  the  manly  sincerity  to 
acknowledge  their  perplexity,  are  not  to  be  treated 
with  large-minded  and  large-hearted  Christian  generosity 
and  tolerance,  as  Dr.  Bushnell  was  not  treated ;  a  dark 
day  if  Christian  thoughtfulness  and  studiousness  and 
moral  sincerity  are  to  be  discredited  in  a  pulpit  that 
originated  in  Christian  liberty  —  and  can  justify  its  ex- 
istence only  on  the  basis  of  an  ever  enlarging  Christian 
intelligence. 

It  was  fifteen  years  after  Bushnell  entered  the  min- 
istry before  the  mystical,  which  is  the  more  distinctively 
spiritual  element  in  his  religious  nature  and  experience, 
was  fully  manifested.  It  was  then  that  he  entered  upon 
a  higher  type  of  religious  Ufe.  And  it  is  in  connection 
with  this  experience  that  he  gained,  as  he  himself  tells 
us,  new  conceptions  of  the  significance  of  Christ,  and 
this  became  the  basis  of  new  conceptions  of  the  char- 
acter of  God.  From  this  time  on  to  the  end  his  religious 
life  was  constantly  deepened  and  enriched.  He  lived 
ever  more  completely  as  in  the  abiding  presence  of  God. 

1  "  Sermons  on  Living  Subjects,"  Sermon  IV. 


1 82       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

This  was  the  period  when  all  the  wealth  of  his  mystical 
poetry  and  poetic  mysticism  developed. 

The  influence  of  his  religious  development  is  discover- 
able in  the  distinctively  Christian  quality  of  his  preach- 
ing. It  is  an  interesting  and  somewhat  suggestive  fact, 
that  many  of  those  modern  preachers,  who  have  been 
much  perplexed  in  faith,  and  who  perhaps  have  for  a 
time  been  distrusted  by  many  of  their  brethren  and 
permanently  distrusted  by  others,  have  after  all  been 
the  men  who  have  preached  Christ  with  unusual  power 
and  persuasiveness,  and  have  in  reality  been  among  the 
most  helpful  preachers  of  their  time.  The  man  who, 
Hke  Bushnell,  has  struggled  for  his  Christian  faith, 
and  has  won  his  standing-ground  as  by  the  hardest,  is 
likely  to  cherish  it  with  a  peculiar  sense  of  preciousness. 
Such  a  man  will  be  content  with  no  by-play  in  his 
preaching.  He  must  get  back  to  the  great  central 
realities  of  a  living  Christianity.  We  find  this  in 
Bushnell's  case.  He  always  discusses  what  is  of 
vital  importance  to  the  Christian  life,  and  he  always 
has  a  distinctively  Christian  theme.  His  sermons  of 
the  specifically  evangeUstic  type  have  never  been  pub- 
lished ;  of  his  power,  therefore,  as  a  preacher  to  the 
heart  and  conscience  with  reference  to  immediate  and 
decisive  evangelistic  results,  we  have  probably  no  ade- 
quate impression  from  those  in  our  possession.  The 
published  sermons  are  of  the  pastoral  sort.  Of  these, 
consisting  of  three  volumes,  more  than  nine-tenths  are 
from  New  Testament  texts,  and  all  of  the  sermons, 
even  those  from  Old  Testament  texts  are  specifically 
Christian  in  substance  and  tone.  They  are  sermons  for 
edification,  speaking  to  the  Christian  intelligence  of  the 


HOMILETIC   PERSONALITY  183 

hearer  and  reaching  the  practical  life  through  intelli- 
gence, but  they  also  bear  the  trace  of  a  heart  strongly 
moved  by  the  truths  presented.  We  are  told  that  his 
utterances  at  the  Lord's  Table,  and  at  the  services 
preparatory  to  it,  were  utterances  of  deep  Christian 
feeling  and  that  these  were  occasions  of  great  up- 
lifting. It  was  then  that  he  poured  out  his  whole 
heart  upon  his  people.  His  prayers  were  remarkable 
for  their  depth  of  feeling,  their  spiritual  power,  their 
freedom  and  simplicity  and  directness.  He  prayed 
as  one  who  lives  in  the  conscious  fellowship  of  God. 
The  higher  world  was  to  him  the  real  world,  and 
he  bathed  himself  in  its  atmosphere  as  in  his  native 
element.  As  with  every  great  preacher  from  Paul, 
Augustine,  and  Luther  down  to  the  preachers  of  our 
own  day,  it  was  this  mystical  element  in  his  religion 
that  was  predominant.  He  was  a  Christian  pantheist 
and  lived  in  God  as  in  his  own  proper  dwelling-place. 
The  influence  of  his  religious  personality  is  seen  in  the 
intense  reality  of  his  preaching.  Nothing  second-hand 
nor  conventional  here.  No  saying  of  things  because  it 
is  orthodox  or  proper  or  prudent  to  say  them.  The 
utterance  is  laden  with  moral  and  spiritual  conviction. 
The  ethical  and  spiritual  life  quickened  his  intellectual 
life,  and  inspired  all  his  intellectual  activities.  It  is  a 
rare  instance  of  the  effect  of  profound  religious  experi- 
ence in  awakening  the  mental  manhood.  The  late  Pres- 
ident Porter  in  his  memorial  address  upon  Dr.  Bushnell 
directs  attention  to  the  influence  of  his  religious  life  upon 
the  development  of  his  individuality.  It  awoke  within 
him  a  new  manhood.  He  suggests  also  that  it  gave  great 
zeal  and  ardor  in  his  work  as  a  pastor,  and  fitted  him,  as 


1 84       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

few  men  were  fitted,  to  meet  the  mental  difificulties  of 
thinking  men  with  respect  to  the  problems  of  religion 
in  his  day. 

Ill 

BUSHNELL'S  HOMILETIC  THEOLOGY 

It  is  not  in  line  with  the  writer's  purpose  in  this  chap- 
ter that  he  should  attempt  an  interpretation  of  Bushnell's 
theology,  —  much  less  that  he  should  attempt  either  a 
criticism  or  a  defence  of  it.  It  is  only  necessary  to  con- 
sider it,  as  it  relates  itself  to  the  substance,  tone,  and 
method  of  his  preaching.  Some  things  that  might  and 
should  be  considered  in  this  connection,  have  already 
been  touched  upon  in  the  previous  discussion,  but  will 
perhaps  have  additional  consideration  from  a  somewhat 
different  point  of  view. 

That  Dr.  Bushnell  had  an  adequate  scientific  concep- 
tion of  the  problems  of  theology  will  doubtless  generally 
be  questioned  in  our  day  by  those  who  are  most  compe- 
tent to  speak  upon  the  subject.  But  that  he  had  pretty 
definite  and  positive  conceptions  of  his  own  about  these 
problems,  and  especially  about  the  great  central  themes 
of  Christian  theology,  which  he  sacredly  cherished,  will 
of  course  be  questioned  by  no  one.  He  was  not  careful  to 
put  these  conceptions  into  rigid  forms  of  definition,  nor 
had  he  any  faith  in  the  permanent  value  of  theological 
definition,  but  he  had  pretty  clear  theological  con- 
ceptions that  interpreted  to  him  the  significance  of  his 
religious  feelings,  convictions,  and  experiences.  His 
theology  lies  back  of  his  preaching,  and  no  preacher  of 
his  day  preached  his  theology  more  fully  than  he.     He 


HOMILETIC  THEOLOGY  1 85 

had  no  theology,  and  would  have  none,  that  he  could  not 
preach.  As  a  merely  speculative  interest  it  had  but  little 
value  for  him.  He  even  denied  that  it  had  any  value  as 
a  mere  product  of  speculation,  save  for  intellectual  gym- 
nastics. It  was,  in  fact,  the  work  of  his  Hfe  to  relate 
theology  to  experience.  This  is  perhaps  the  chief 
reason  why  his  theology  has  made  such  an  impression, 
and  why  men  have  been  so  much  interested  in  it.  It 
is  not  wholly  their  interest  in  the  personality  of  the 
man,  nor  in  his  forceful  and  suggestive  literary  style. 
It  is  true  that  we  are  so  strongly  interested  in  the  man, 
and  in  his  cogent  and  attractive  manner  of  expressing 
himself,  that  he  easily  solicits  our  interest  in  what  he 
thinks  and  says.  But  it  is  a  more  vital  and  personal 
interest  than  that.  His  thinking  interests  us  because 
it  practically  concerns  us.  It  relates  itself  to  our  own 
needs,  and  to  many  of  our  best  hfe  experiences.  His 
theology,  therefore,  may  be  called  homiletic  theology,  — 
theology  that  can  be  preached  because  it  touches  the 
realities  of  human  experience.  Dr.  Bushnell  may  have 
been  subjective  and  measurably  unscientific  in  his  think- 
ing, but  that  he  was  a  brave,  forceful,  and  useful  reli- 
gious thinker,  almost  every  one  in  our  day  will 
acknowledge.  To  show  that  religion  has  significance 
and  value  independently  of  any  particular  form  of 
intellectual  experience  of  it,  and  to  interpret  it  not  in 
terms  of  speculative  thought,  but  in  harmony  with  the 
facts  of  ethical  and  spiritual  experience,  and  to  bring 
the  facts  of  experience  that  lie  below  the  speculative 
understanding  to  the  task  of  verifying  the  claims  of 
rehgion,  and  to  show  that  as  facts,  they  are  thinkable 
and  reasonable,  —  this  was  the  work  of  his  life.     This, 


1 86   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

therefore,  must  be  our  starting-point  in  estimating  his 
theology. 

Under  what  combination  of  influences  or  by  what 
particular  agencies  he  was  led  to  abandon  his  early 
naturahstic  and  rationalistic  basis  of  thought  upon  the 
problems  of  religion,  and  "  to  think  himself  out  of  his 
overthinking,"  is  not  wholly  clear.  The  development  of 
this  sceptical  attitude  toward  the  intellect  as  the  organ 
of  religious  knowledge,  was  a  somewhat  occult  process. 
Doubtless  we  may  discover  in  it  his  own  originality  and 
independence  of  character.  It  is  evidently  connected 
with  his  own  ethical  and  spiritual  development,  by  virtue 
of  which  he  is  set  in  reaction  against  the  dominance  of 
the  dogmatic  and  rationalistic  method  that  overvalues 
and  one-sidedly  uses  the  processes  of  the  speculative 
understanding  in  theological  investigation.  It  probably 
stands  connected,  too,  with  those  influences  of  early 
years,  whatever  they  may  have  been,  that  led  him  to  adopt 
the  theory  that  language,  as  to  its  nature  and  function,  is 
an  organ  of  representative  thought,  rather  than  of  exact 
scientific  thought,  and  this  is  probably  connected  with 
the  rapid  development  of  the  imaginative  side  of  his 
nature.  It  should  be  remembered,  however,  as  already 
intimated  in  another  connection,  that  criticism  of  the 
then  existing  theory  of  religious  knowledge  had  already 
begun  to  do  its  disintegrating  work.  It  was  already 
undermining  the  philosophical  foundations  of  theology. 
Ethical  and  spiritual  idealism  was  gaining  ground. 
Bushnell  knew  this  movement,  although  he  did  not 
know  its  sources,  nor  its  full  import.  He  saw  more 
clearly,  however,  than  most  of  the  men  of  his  time  saw, 
and  probably  than  any  other  man  in  the  Christian  min- 


HOMILETIC  THEOLOGY  187 

istry  in  this  country.  He  saw  but  little,  yet  it  meant 
much.  The  man  of  vision,  who  lives  on  the  mountain 
top,  catches  lights  that  flash  from  other  distant  and 
higher  peaks,  which  the  men  who  linger  in  the  valley 
below  do  not  catch ;  and  though  it  be  but  a  flash,  it  is 
light,  and  it  has  vast  significance  for  the  seer.  Bush- 
nell  could  not  have  been  altogether  ignorant  of  what 
was  going  on  without  as  well  as  within  himself.  He 
was,  indeed,  an  independent  thinker,  but  he  was  not  with- 
out dependence  upon  greater  thinkers.  Men  of  light 
and  leading  like  Coleridge  pointed  the  way,  and  he  was 
quick  to  follow,  for  it  seemed  to  him  the  homeward 
path ;  but  he  followed  in  a  strikingly  independent  way. 
He  thought  that  some  things  which  other  men  had 
already  excogitated,  were  his  own  independent  product, 
and  they  were  in  a  sort.  But  he  had  company  on  his 
new  path,  although  he  was  unconscious  of  his  compan- 
ionship. In  ruling  out  metaphysics  and  dialectics  from 
theology,  and  in  finding  anchorage  in  ethical  and  spirit- 
ual experience,  Bushnell  is  doubtless  a  pioneer  in  this 
country,  and,  as  has  been  well  shown,  anticipates  much 
that  has  become  a  somewhat  common  possession,  and  that 
bears  the  general  name  of  Ritschlianism,  which  is  itself 
simply  a  not  very  remote  product  of  Kant's  and  Schlei- 
ermacher's  thinking ;  for  there  is  nothing  here  the  raw 
material  of  which  is  not  furnished  by  those  great  think- 
ers. This  conviction,  which  ultimately  came  to  him  as 
a  new  discovery,  that  religion  is  the  basis  of  all  theology 
and  furnishes  to  reflection  all  of  its  materials,  and  that 
it  is  to  be  interpreted  according  to  its  own  facts  as  ethi- 
cal and  spiritual  experience  and  not  according  to  abstract, 
speculative  processes  or  theories,  gives  character   and 


1 88       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

direction  to  his  own  theology.  In  considering  the 
change  that  passed  upon  his  theology,  in  which  his 
ethical,  religious,  and  artistic  development  had  so  strong 
an  influence,  we  should  not  forget  the  value  to  him  of 
his  earlier  rationalistic  experiences.  As  a  rationalist  and 
an  adherent  of  the  religion  of  nature  he  had  learned  two 
things :  he  had  learned  to  think  and  he  had  learned  to 
doubt,  and  the  lesson  was  of  great  value  to  him  in  after 
years.  In  the  processes  of  his  early  independent 
thinking  he  came  to  question  the  church  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity,  and,  in  connection  with  this,  the  traditional 
conceptions  of  the  person  of  Christ.  It  was  not  the 
current  theology  but  the  current  Christology  that  was 
first  challenged.  His  conception  of  God  modified  as  his 
conception  of  Christ  modified.  His  theology  was  in  an 
important  sense  a  product  of  his  Christology.  The  Christ 
that  had  been  presented  to  him  did  not  seem  to  satisfy 
either  his  intellectual  or  his  spiritual  or  ethical  needs. 
With  great  intellectual  and  moral  courage  he  therefore 
sets  about  the  task  of  finding  a  Christ  who  should  satisfy 
his  higher  needs,  and  here  the  brave  thinker,  the  honest 
doubter,  and  the  devout  believer  join  hands.  He  did 
not  save  his  orthodoxy,  but  his  religious  faith  was  saved 
by  attaching  itself  to  a  Christ  that  met  all  his  spiritual 
needs,  the  living  Christ  who  is  the  complete  revealer  of 
God,  and  in  whom  alone  we  can  know  God.  With  this 
new  knowledge  of  Christ  there  comes,  as  already  sug- 
gested, a  new  knowledge  of  God.  God  is  known  to  him 
and  interpreted  not  through  speculative  thought,  as  the 
young  rationalist  would  know  and  interpret  Him,  but  as 
He  is  discovered  in  Christ  and  as  He  becomes  inwardly 
revealed  through  the  sense  of  kinship  with  Him  which 


HOMILETIC  THEOLOGY  189 

comes  through  fellowship  with  Christ.  Thus  God  be- 
comes a  real,  living,  pervasive  presence,  the  background 
of  the  universe,  immanent  in  all  its  processes,  and  dis- 
closes Himself  in  immediate  knowledge.  This  is  the 
basis  of  his  conception  of  the  revelation  of  God.  It 
appears  in  his  "  Nature  and  the  Supernatural."  Nature 
and  man  are  parts  of  one  great  whole.  The  supernat- 
ural is  constantly  playing  into  and  through  the  order 
of  the  world,  and  this  conditions  his  conception  of  the 
miraculous.  God  is  the  ever  present  reality,  and  never 
ceases  to  work  as  a  supernatural  force  in  the  world  of 
nature  and  of  humanity.  In  the  modification  of  his 
Christology  his  soteriology  underwent  a  corresponding 
modification.  A  new  conception  of  the  person  of  Christ 
involves  a  new  conception  of  the  work  of  Christ.  But 
it  also  took  connection  with  new  conceptions  of  the 
character  of  God  and  of  His  revelation  to  men.  The 
same  general  conception  of  the  divine  character  and 
revelation  that  appeared  in  "  Nature  and  the  Super- 
natural "  appeared  also  in  his  "  Vicarious  Sacrifice."  God 
in  Christ  has  come  into  living  and  abiding  relation  with 
humanity,  and  sacrifice  is  but  the  necessary  outcome  and 
disclosure  of  the  fact  that  God  is  in  the  human  race  in 
the  order  of  redemptive  love.  This  leads  him  to  reject 
what  calls  itself  the  forensic  conception  of  the  atone- 
ment, but  not  necessarily  the  truth  that  is  expressed  by 
it,  as  he  himself  subsequently  practically  acknowledged 
in  the  supplement  to  "Vicarious  Sacrifice."  But  su- 
preme stress  is  laid  upon  the  moral  force  of  the  atone- 
ment. There  is  no  Christ  for  us,  that  avails  with  God, 
who  is  not  the  Christ  within  us  as  a  living  redemptive 
force.     And  the  Christ  within  us  avails  with  God  pre- 


190   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

cisely  because  he  does  God's  work  within  us  and  brings 
us  into  the  likeness  of  God.  No  one  has  ever  presented 
Christ  more  cogently  or  more  attractively  as  a  moral 
force  in  the  very  life  of  humanity,  present  there  as  a 
power  of  ever  fresh  renewal  for  the  human  race.  And 
no  one  has  ever  grasped  the  conception  of  a  race  re- 
demption more  strongly  or  exhibited  a  loftier  faith  in 
the  "  outpopulating  power  of  the  Christian  stock  "  in  the 
future  processes  of  human  development.  In  all  these 
theological  changes  we  see  the  working  of  the  strong, 
independent  mind  that  is  not  afraid  to  challenge  tradi- 
tional behefs,  of  the  vigorous  ethical  nature,  of  the 
devout  and  pious  heart,  and  of  the  mystical  imagination. 
It  yields  for  him  a  theology  which  he  is  sure  can  be 
preached  and  which  he  is  equally  sure  men  need  to 
hear. 

Bushnell's  theology  never  appears  in  his  preaching 
in  technical  form,  nor  is  it  here  in  a  formal  manner  at 
all,  but  its  substance  is  here  pervasively.  And  it  is  this 
that  secures  for  his  preaching  a  fundamental  and  com- 
prehensive character,  so  that  it  aggregates  a  great 
amount  of  strong  and  edifying  thinking.  He  seizes 
the  principles  that  underlie  practical  working  Christian 
truth,  and  presents  them  in  such  way  as  makes  them 
available  for  life.  His  preaching  discloses  his  purpose 
to  get  theology  at  work.  Hence  the  mingling  of  the 
didactic  and  the  impressional,  of  the  intellectual  and 
the  ethical  and  emotional,  of  the  truth  as  we  are  to 
think  it  and  the  truth  as  we  are  to  live  it.  It  has  solid 
thought  and  strong  feeling  and  conviction.  It  deals 
with  living  men  and  with  real  needs,  and  not  with 
things  remote  from  common  human  life.     It  is  full  of 


HOMILETIC  THEOLOGY  I9I 

insight,  rationality,  reality,  and  persuasiveness.  It  will 
live  because  it  contains  so  much  that  men  need  to  hear 
and  want  to  hear  when  they  know  their  real  wants. 

Bushnell's  reaction  against  abstract  and  dogmatic 
theology  and  against  speculative  processes  in  dealing 
with  the  phenomena  of  religion,  had  for  one  of  its 
results  a  higher  estimate  of  religion  as  a  historic  real- 
ity. His  views  of  revelation  were  modified.  God  has 
not  revealed  Himself  in  a  body  of  doctrine  but  as  a 
personal,  living,  historic  presence.  Consequently  his 
supreme  interest  is  in  the  historic  Christ.  To  know 
Christ  is  of  supreme  importance,  for  to  know  Him 
aright  is  to  know  God  aright.  It  is  no  wonder,  there- 
fore, that  his  Christology  was  the  first  thing  to  be  set 
right.  This  secures  a  Christo-centric  quality  to  his 
preaching.  It  attaches  itself  to  the  historic  Christ.  It 
is  Christological  rather  than  theological.  It  is  theologi- 
cal only  in  the  sense  that  the  character  of  God  as  re- 
vealed in  Christ  is  a  subject  that  is  often  brought  to 
our  attention.  He  knows  chiefly  the  God  who  is  re- 
vealed in  Christ,  and  his  Christology  is  his  theology. 
There  are  more  discourses  in  the  volume  entitled  "  Ser- 
mons for  the  New  Life  "  that  have  a  theological  centre 
than  in  the  other  two  volumes.  But  these  relate  largely 
to  the  government  and  providence  of  God  as  seen  in  the 
light  of  Christ,  and  to  the  way  in  which  we  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  God.  ''  Every  Man's  Life  a  Plan  of  God," 
^'Spiritual  Dislodgments,"  "The  Spirit  in  Man,"  "The 
Hunger  of  the  Soul,"  "  The  Reason  of  Faith,"  "  The 
Capacity  of  Religion  Extirpated  by  Disuse,"  are  ser- 
mons that  touch  upon  these  questions,  and  they  are 
among  the  strongest  and  most  impressive  sermons  of 


192       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

the  volume.  But  most  of  the  sermons  in  this  and  all 
of  those  in  the  volume  entitled  "  Christ  and  His  Salva- 
tion," are  distinctively  Christological.  As  being  based 
on  historic  religion,  it  follows  that  his  preaching  is  emi- 
nently BibHcal.  His  themes  are  always  taken  directly 
from  Scriptural  sources,  sometimes  by  felicitous  pro- 
cesses of  suggestion,  but  they  always  have  a  fresh 
Scriptural  flavor.  They  contain  the  raw  material  of  re- 
ligious thought  as  it  emerges  in  the  fresh  forms  of  the 
Biblical  records,  and  never  in  the  formal  doctrines  of 
the  church.  Citations  of  individual  Scripture  passages 
are  not  abundant  in  his  discussions.  He  deals  rather 
with  the  trend  of  BibUcal  teaching,  and  the  Scriptures  in 
their  bold  outlines  are  brought  to  the  support  of  his  dis- 
cussion. There  is  never  lacking  such  Biblical  defence 
of  the  truth  in  hand,  and  not  infrequently  there  is  a 
distinct  BibHcal  topic  giving  the  Biblical  contribution  to 
his  argument.  As  having  for  its  chief  object  the  pres- 
entation of  Christ  in  his  living  relation  with  men,  his 
preaching  does  not  to  any  considerable  extent  touch 
upon  his  external  or  extra-world  relations ;  and  as  inter- 
preting Christian  truth  with  supreme  reference  to  prac- 
tical life,  it  is  prevailingly  anthropological  and  ethical. 
It  is  not  "  the  way  of  salvation  "  as  objectively  given  in 
Christ,  so  much  as  salvation  as  a  power  to  subdue  man, 
and  as  a  power,  when  appropriated  by  man,  to  bring 
him  into  fellowship  with  God.  It  deals  with  the  human 
soul  and  has  an  interesting  psychological  quality,  and  it 
deals  with  the  individual  soul,  not  with  the  collective 
life  of  the  church.  There  are  but  few  sermons  that 
touch  the  church  at  all.  They  deal  with  the  higher 
ranges  of   human  experience.     The  ethical  quality  of 


HOMILETIC  THEOLOGY  193 

his  preaching,  which,  by  examining  the  themes  of  his 
sermons  in  all  these  volumes,  especially  the  last  en- 
titled ''Sermons  on  Living  Subjects,"  will  be  found  to 
be  predominant,  is  distinguished  by  the  fact  that  the 
principles  of  the  ethical  Christian  life  are  discussed, 
and  hence  that  it  takes  a  didactic  or  expository  form. 
One  of  the  topics  of  the  discussion  also  deals  specifi- 
cally with  the  practical  moral  bearings  of  the  subject, 
and  the  conclusion  of  the  sermon  rarely  fails  to  use  the 
subject  discussed  for  the  realization  of  practical  results. 
By  greatening  the  significance  of  the  truth  discussed, 
he  will  all  the  more  effectively  impress  it  upon  the 
moral  life  of  the  hearer.  And  yet  the  entire  sermon, 
however  didactic  its  character,  has  an  elevated  moral 
tone  and  aim.  It  follows  from  all  this  tendency  to  in- 
terpret the  truth  to  the  Christian  intelligence  of  men, 
and  then  to  apply  it  to  practical  edification,  that  he  was 
preeminently  a  pastoral,  as  distinguished  from  an  evan- 
gelistic, preacher.  The  class  of  truths  discussed  and 
his  manner  of  discussing  them  are  not  in  general  adapted 
to  the  evangelistic  aim  and  method.  The  motives  with 
which  he  deals  also  are  motives  that  centre  in  religion 
largely  as  a  present  reality.  His  preaching  is  for  edifi- 
cation rather  than  for  conversion.  The  motives  urged 
are  rational,  ethical,  and  spiritual  and  presuppose  an 
already  existing  Christian  mind.  And  yet  there  is  a 
tone  about  his  preaching,  there  is  a  cogency  in  his 
handling  of  great  Christian  themes,  as  is  illustrated  in 
the  sermon,  "Christ  Waiting  to  find  Room,"  that  is  well 
adapted  to  evangelistic  impression,  and  such  sermons 
must  strongly  have  influenced  those  who  did  not  pro- 
fess and  call  themselves  Christians.     Many  of  the  truths 


194      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

discussed  touched  the  very  heart  of  the  Gospel,  and  they 
must  have  won  the  moral  and  spiritual  allegiance  of  men. 
But  this  at  least  is  true,  that  this  sort  of  preaching  which 
greatens  to  the  mind  and  enforces  upon  the  heart  and 
conscience  the  august  truths  of  redemptive  religion,  is 
the  best  possible  ground-laying  work  for  evangelistic 
preaching. 


CHAPTER  V 
PHILLIPS   BROOKS 

I 

THE  CHRISTIAN   HUMANIST 

It  is  not  difficult  to  fix  at  the  outset  upon  what  is  most 
distinctive  in  the  character  of  Phillips  Brooks.  It  is  the 
breadth  and  wealth  of  his  humanity.  Using  the  term  in 
a  somewhat  comprehensive  sense,  he  may  be  called  the 
great  Christian  humanist  of  his  generation.  He  came  to 
the  world  with  a  great  human  soul,  and  he  bent  all  his 
energies  to  the  task  of  interpreting  and  ennobling 
human  existence.  The  total  impression  left  by  his 
biography  by  Professor  Allen  is  that  we  are  here  in 
contact  with  the  most  human  of  human  beings,  from 
whom  nothing  that  belongs  to  humanity  can  ever  be 
foreign  ;  and  this  impression  heightens  and  intensifies 
all  previous  impressions  from  whatever  source.  To 
account  for  him,  therefore,  must  be  a  matter  of  interest. 
Genius  —  and  not  the  less,  but  even  the  more  manifestly, 
religious  genius  —  is  always  the  gift  of  God.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  reach  of  course  the  full  secret  of  this  superbly 
built  specimen  of  New  England  manhood.  But  some 
things  are  clear,  and  perhaps  the  clearest  thing,  and  the 
most  noteworthy,  is  that  he  was  the  consummate  flower 
of  nine  generations  of  cultured  Puritan  stock.     We  are 

195 


196       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN    PREACHERS 

given  to  know  that  on  the  one  side  he  inherited  the 
Puritan's  high  sense  of  the  worth  of  humanity,  his  large 
estimate  of  its  possibiUties  of  development,  his  recogni- 
tion of  the  sacredness  of  the  individual  soul,  and  his 
enthusiastic  devotion  to  its  highest  welfare.  This  was 
the  spring  of  that  lofty  idealism  that  passed  into  an 
optimism  that  was  unmatched  in  his  generation.  On 
the  other  side  he  inherited  the  Puritan's  sturdy  common 
sense,  his  outlook  upon  the  earthly  and  temporal  inter- 
ests of  men,  his  aggressive  and  enterprising  devotion 
to  all  that  belongs  to  the  ordinary  relations  of  life,  his 
love  for  the  concrete  and  tangible,  his  aptitude  for 
practical  affairs,  and  his  personal  reserve  and  pride  of 
individualism.  As  we  have  seen  in  the  case  of  Beecher 
and  of  Bushnell,  so  in  this  princely  product  all  that  was 
best  in  the  Puritan  stock,  in  its  idealistic  and  practical 
aspects,  disclosed  itself.  Without  this  Puritan  ''  enthusi- 
asm of  humanity  "  no  adequate  estimate  of  this  largely 
and  symmetrically  moulded  man  is  possible.  Such  a 
man  could  not  be  compressed  within  the  limits  of  a 
narrow  provincial  ecclesiasticism,  nor  twisted  into  line 
with  a  narrow  institutional  Christianity.  He  belonged 
to  the  church  catholic.  He  had  a  sort  of  prenatal  com- 
mitment to  that  theory  of  the  church  which  recognizes 
its  free  self -development  from  within  under  the  organ- 
izing agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Yet  he  was  not  a 
Congregationalist.  He  was  baptized  in  the  Unitarian 
Church.  He  may  have  been  influenced  by  the  intel- 
lectual freedom  and  the  moral  earnestness  of  Unitarian- 
ism.  But  he  was  not  a  Unitarian.  It  was  the  Episcopal 
Church  to  which  his  parents  migrated  when  he  was  four 
years  old  that  nurtured  his  subconscious  and  later  con- 


THE   CHRISTIAN   HUMANIST  197 

scious  life.  That  this  church  was  his  early  religious 
home,  and  that  the  mark  of  its  nurture  was  upon  him, 
will  always  stand  to  its  honor.  Its  evangeHcal  piety 
left  an  indelible  impress  upon  him,  as  that  of  the  evan- 
gelical branch  of  the  Anglican  Church  upon  Newman 
and  Robertson.  Let  it  be  confessed  that  it  is  matter  for 
devout  gratitude  that  he  was  nurtured  in  this  evangeli- 
cal school.  Here  was  one  of  the  sources  of  that  reli- 
gious love  for  men  that  enhanced  so  greatly  his  power 
as  a  preacher.  But  it  was  too  narrow  a  school  for  him, 
as  it  was  for  Robertson.  As  by  inheritance,  as  by  his 
bias  to  intellectual  freedom,  by  the  impulse  of  his  large 
intelHgence,  which  induced  him  to  get  behind  the  his- 
toric forms  into  the  larger  catholic  principles  that  lie 
behind  this  school,  and  by  all  the  preponderating  influ- 
ences that  were  brought  to  bear  upon  him  from  with- 
out, he  was  a  Broad  churchman.  But  he  was  a  Broad 
churchman  only  in  so  far  as  this  section  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church  represents  the  church  of  idealized  and 
redeemed  humanity.  And  it  may  be  justly  claimed 
that,  despite  the  influences  of  these  two  schools,  he 
was  not,  in  the  larger  estimate,  a  product  of  his  church. 
He  belonged  to  a  broader  world  than  any  branch  of 
it  represented.  He  was  not  an  ecclesiastic.  He  was 
indeed  loyal  to  his  church,  but  he  was  free  from  many 
of  its  limitations.  He  had  but  scant  respect  for  an 
institutional  Christianity,  that  does  not  recognize  the 
kingdom  of  God  as  broader  than  the  church.  In  a 
reasonable  manner  and  measure  he  accepted  church 
authority  and  found  a  way  of  justifying  it,  but  he 
regarded  the  dogma  of  apostolic  authority  as  a  fiction. 
He  loved  the  church  because  it  represented  ideal  human- 


198       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ity,  and  he  found  its  strength,  not  in  its  alleged  apos- 
tolic order,  but  in  the  saintly  lives  of  its  members,  not  in 
the  sanctity  of  an  office  but  in  sanctity  of  character. 
Within  the  liturgical  and  canonical  exactions  of  his  church 
he  exercised  his  freedom,  in  this  sense  of  freedom,  even 
rejoicing  in  these  exactions.  But  a  formal,  institutional 
Christianity  had  no  value  for  him,  and  he  cared  but 
little  for  the  ecclesiastical  assembly,  having  a  greater 
relish  for  the  associations  of  human  friendship  than 
for  what  seemed  to  him  the  pettiness  of  ecclesiastical 
debate.  He  freely  affiliated  with  men  who  were  be- 
yond his  ecclesiastical  boundaries.  All  this  because 
his  impulses  were  humanistic  rather  than  provincial  or 
ecclesiastical,  and  because  the  church  represented  to 
him  the  sacredness  of  humanity. 

Coming  to  his  student  life  we  find  disclosed  this 
same  broad,  human  spirit.  It  is  easy  to  read  too  much 
into  the  early  studies  and  products  of  his  student-life, 
but  we  may  find  much  here  that  was  really  distinctive 
of  the  man.  We  find  here  a  student  isolated  from  the 
boyish  sports  of  hf e,  but  eager  for  the  knowledge  of 
men  and  things,  with  a  disHke  for  what  is  abstract  and 
in  the  formal  sense  philosophical,  with  strong  bias  for 
history,  biography,  and  literature,  with  pronounced 
literary  tastes,  and  disclosing  the  same  affluence,  and 
the  same  descriptive  qualities  of  style  that  characterized 
his  maturer  years.  He  belonged  to  the  old  Harvard  of 
the  humanities.  In  the  preparatory  school  and  in  the 
college,  he  acquired  a  good  working  knowledge  of  the 
classics  of  which  he  availed  himself  in  subsequent 
years.  He  worked  rapidly  and  had  time  to  follow  his 
bent  for  literary  culture.     He  exercised  the  freedom  of 


THE   CHRISTIAN   HUMANIST  199 

self-direction,  following  his  own  impulses  or  instincts  as 
he  foraged  among  the  college  libraries,  appropriating  with 
avidity  whatever  came  within  his  reach,  laying  the  founda- 
tion for  a  better  appreciation  of  the  literature  of  his  own 
day  by  mastering  the  best  products  of  the  literature  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  He  always  went  below  the 
surface  of  things  and  tried  to  get  at  their  inner  mean- 
ing. But  he  was  as  averse  to  metaphysics  as  Bushnell  ^ 
was,  and  as  ignorant  of  philosophy  in  the  formal  sense 
of  the  word.  He  was,  however,  not  indifferent  to  nor 
ignorant  of  those  fundamental  philosophical  principles 
that  are  necessary  to  the  interpretation  of  life,  with  which 
it  was  the  necessity  of  his  mind  to  grapple,  and  he 
absorbed  them,  as  many  another  thoughtful  man  has 
done,  from  the  intellectual  atmosphere  in  which  he 
lived  or  from  the  literature  with  which  he  became 
familiar.  In  later  life  he  was  something  of  a  student  of 
Lotze.  It  is  evident  that  Lotze  appealed  to  his  hu- 
manistic tendencies.  We  may  surmise  that  what  inter- 
ested him  chiefly  in  his  philosophy  was  the  prominence 
of  the  ethical  and  aesthetic  elements  in  it,  the  stress  laid 
upon  value-judgments  in  dealing  with  the  problems  of 
human  existence,  and  its  recognition  of  personaHty  as 
belonging  in  its  full  significance  only  to  the  being  of  the 
Absolute.  He  was  especially  interested  in  the  lives  of 
great  men,  Luther,  Cromwell,  Mohammed.  The  larger 
the  personality  the  greater  his  interest;  this  was  his 
point  of  interest  in  Carlyle.  His  ready  responsiveness 
to  what  is  human  found  illustration  in  his  college  career. 
He  is  a  product  of  the  old  Harvard  curriculum.  All  the 
great  masters  in  the  modern  pulpit  have  been  products 
of  a  curriculum  in  which  the  humanities  were  supreme, 


200       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

If  the  modern  curriculum  of  elective  miscellany  can 
turn  out  a  better  product  for  the  Christian  pulpit,  it  will 
doubtless  be  seen  and  acknowledged  in  due  time. 
Turning  to  the  influences  that  ultimately  determined 
his  choice  of  the  Christian  ministry,  we  find  them  some- 
what obscure.  The  consciousness  of  eminent  oratori- 
cal gifts  could  hardly  have  been  one  of  them,  for  in 
college  he  gave  no  promise  of  being  an  orator.  Perhaps 
his  freedom  from  a  sceptical  habit  of  mind  may  have 
been  a  favorable  negative  condition  for  the  choice,  for 
he  was  not  a  constitutional  questioner  like  Bushnell. 
Ancestral  and  personal  piety  have,  of  course,  their  place 
in  the  problem.  The  ministry  as  a  sphere  for  the  ex- 
pression of  the  didactic,  ethical,  and  artistic  impulse, 
which  was  strong  within  him,  is  to  be  considered.  But 
in  early  years  he  had  a  dread  of  submission  to  authority, 
and  cherished  the  impression  that  the  ministry  would 
limit  the  free  development  of  his  powers,  and  this, 
with  the  dread  of  provincialism,  caused  him  to  hesitate. 
And  so  one  fancies  that  at  last  the  decisive  thing  was 
the  conviction  that  after  all  the  ministry  furnished  the 
largest  and  completest  sphere  for  his  devotion  to  the 
interests  of  humanity.  At  any  rate,  we  are  assured 
by  his  biographer  that  he  saw  the  mistake  of  his  early 
estimate,  and  that  he  came  to  the  ministry  with  the 
conviction  that  it  was  the  best  sphere  for  the  exercise  of 
all  his  powers ;  and  he  succeeded  as  but  few  have  done 
in  vindicating  this  judgment  in  his  own  ministry. 

We  find  the  same  characteristic  tendencies  in  his 
student  life  in  the  divinity  school.  Here  he  begins  to 
grapple  in  dead  earnest  with  the  great  problems  of 
life.     He  was  faithful   to  the   curriculum,  although   a 


THE   CHRISTIAN   HUMANIST  201 

critic  of  it,  and  seems  to  have  received  a  strong  im- 
pulse in  the  direction  of  intellectual  freedom,  at  the 
same  time  continuing  subject  to  the  same  sort  of  evan- 
gelical influence  which  he  had  found  in  his  home. 
But  he  ranged  widely  and  with  amazing  eagerness  and 
wealth  of  result  beyond  the  courses.  He  led  a  some- 
what retired  life,  and  plunged  into  the  heart  of  a  broad 
student  world.  As  by  a  sort  of  divination,  or  hunger  of 
soul  for  what  he  needed,  he  seized  upon  what  seemed 
to  belong  to  him.  He  apparently  made  no  special 
mark  in  technical  theology,  whether  in  dogmatics  or 
in  exegesis.  He  was  especially  interested,  however,  in 
historic  theology.  Of  the  church  Fathers  he  was  a 
thorough  student,  and  we  may  trace  the  influence  of 
Origen,  and  back  of  him  of  Philo  and  of  other  church 
Fathers,  in  the  allegorizing  habit  which  characterized  his 
preaching.  He  always  gets  behind  the  historic  form 
of  truth  and  seizes  the  back-lying  principle  suggested ; 
and  this  habit  of  looking  at  truth  through  the  imagina- 
tion, which  was  in  part  at  least  the  result  of  his  study 
of  the  Fathers,  was  made  very  prominent  in  his 
preaching  throughout  his  entire  career.  But  beyond 
the  theological  studies  he  ranged  more  widely,  prob- 
ably, than  any  student  of  his  day.  He  had  a  gift  and 
a  love  for  the  classics.  He  was  especially  interested 
in  the  classical  dramatists,  from  whom  he  was  learn- 
ing the  Greek  interpretation  of  life,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  became  absorbed  in  modern  English  literature. 
It  was  in  the  theological  school  that  he  resumed  an 
earlier  habit  of  keeping  note-books,  in  which  he  gave 
expression  to  thoughts  which  crowded  upon  him  from 
his  reading  and  study,  and  which  in  the  form  of  illus- 


202       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

trations,  hundreds  of  them,  appeared  later  in  his  ser- 
mons. These  notes,  whether  in  the  form  of  Hterary 
impressions  or  of  personal  thoughts,  or  of  suggestions 
from  others,  are  full  of  sahent  characteristics,  —  his 
catholicity  of  spirit,  his  largeness  of  outlook,  his  sense 
of  the  practical  utility  of  truth,  his  enthusiasm  for  Ufe, 
his  reflective  habit,  his  gift  for  personification.  They 
disclose  the  results  of  his  historical  and  Hterary  studies. 
He  is  beginning  with  nature  and  man,  with  the  earthly 
and  human,  not  the  divine.  In  all  this  and  in  his  eager 
admiration  for  all  that  is  humanly  great  and  good  we 
see  the  humanist.  It  is  the  intellectual  development 
that  impresses  us,  and  there  is  almost  nothing  that  in- 
dicates profound  evangelical  piety.  He  seems,  indeed, 
carefully  to  exclude  all  such  utterances  of  pious  feel- 
ing as  we  find  in  the  early  letters  and  writings  of 
Schleiermacher.  We  behold  a  large  independent  na- 
ture, that  is  subjecting  itself  to  a  great  variety  of  human 
impressions,  that  is  feeling  its  way  out  into  human  life, 
and  is  developing  freely  from  within  along  lines  that 
disclose  his  most  distinctive  impulses. 

It  was  in  line  with  his  humanistic  tendencies  that  he 
should  love  the  city  more  than  the  country.  He  had  an 
artist's  eye  for  scenic  beauty,  and  it  quickened  his  poetic 
impulses;  but  he  loved  more  the  crowded  city  streets, 
where  he  could  feel  the  rushing  tides  of  human  life. 
He  was  a  born  city  pastor,  and  could  sympathize  with 
Thomas  Guthrie,  who  criticised  the  sentiment,  "God 
made  the  country,  but  man  made  the  town."  Provi- 
dence, therefore,  had  in  reserve  for  him  a  city  parish, 
and  it  must  be  regarded  as  rare  good  fortune  that  his 
first  pastoral  contact  with  human  life  should  have  been 


THE   CHRISTIAN  HUMANIST  203 

among  the  people  of  the  Philadelphia  of  years  ago. 
Not  less  fortunate  was  it  that  his  later,  rather  than 
his  earlier,  ministry  was  in  Boston.  Nor  is  it  less  a 
matter  for  thankfulness  that  he  entered  upon  his  min- 
istry just  before  the  opening  of  the  Civil  War.  It  was 
a  time  of  great  distress,  but  of  mighty  inspirations. 
Many  a  minister  was  lifted  above  himself  by  the  great- 
ness of  that  conflict,  and  found  in  it  the  incentive  of  all 
that  was  most  effective  in  his  ministry.  It  awakened 
and  evoked  the  greatness  of  Phillips  Brooks.  It  chal- 
lenged all  his  noblest  enthusiasm,  all  the  passion  of 
his  patriotism,  all  his  courage,  all  his  freedom,  all  his 
philanthropy  and  humanity ;  and  he  threw  himself  into 
the  conflict,  preaching  with  a  fiery  patriotism,  like  that 
of  Schleiermacher,  that  mightily  stirred  the  souls  of  men, 
bringing  to  bear  on  the  platform,  no  less  than  in  the  pul- 
pit, all  his  vigor  of  thought,  of  imagination,  of  emotion, 
all  his  force  of  will,  all  the  wealth  of  his  most  human 
experiences,  stored  up  for  just  such  use,  upon  the  great 
questions  that  were  in  issue.  Here  was  well  laid  the 
foundation  for  a  great  career.  Later  years  may  have 
witnessed  in  many  respects  more  important  service  for 
the  church  and  the  world,  but  none  were  marked  by 
greater  intellectual  brilHancy  or  more  popular  effec- 
tiveness than  those  years  of  the  Philadelphia  ministry 
that  lie  behind  the  twenty-two  years  of  the  greater 
Boston  ministry.  It  was  a  proof  of  his  clear  discern- 
ment, as  well  as  in  accord  with  his  deepening  ethical 
and  religious  experiences,  and  in  line  with  all  his  best 
human  impulses,  that  he  should  have  recognized  the 
changed  conditions  of  the  ministerial  problem  when 
he  went  to  Boston.     In  Philadelphia  he  was  called  to 


204       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

deal  more  largely  with  associate  life,  and  to  grapple 
with  great  public  problems.  In  Boston,  where  the 
problems  of  religious  thought  were  more  exigent,  he 
recognized  himself  as  summoned  to  deal  more  specifi- 
cally with  individual  life,  to  become  the  interpreter  of 
life  to  the  individual  soul.  And  here  w^  see  the  sameU 
large  humanity  placed  at  the  service  of  men  who  are 
struggling  with  the  contradictions  and  confusions  and 
doubts  of  human  life.  It  was  in  this  Boston  ministry, 
a  ministry  of  great  power  in  ennobling  men's  concep- 
tions of  the  world  and  of  Hfe,  that  he  proved  himself 
to  be  the  great  pastoral  preacher  of  his  age.  Here  it 
was  his  choice  vocation  to  interpret  men  to  themselves, 
to  tell  them  things  about  themselves  they  did  not  know,  to 
explain  things  of  which  they  were  only  half  conscious, 
to  ennoble  them  in  their  own  eyes,  to  humble  them  in 
their  imperfections  and  sins,  to  interpret  the  humanity 
of  Christ  and  the  divinity  that  is  possible  for  man. 
Everywhere  and  always  it  is  the  same  great  soul,  clear 
and  broad  in  its  intellectual  apprehensions,  sturdy  in  its 
moral  devotions,  tender  in  its  human  sympathies,  that 
is  giving  itself,  with  increasing  sense  of  the  fellowship  of 
God  and  of  His  Christ,  to  the  higher  interests  of  men. 
In  his  intercourse  with  friends  we  see  increasingly  the 
large-  and  tender-heartedness  of  the  man.  His  letters 
have  not  the  moral  sobriety  of  Bushnell's  nor  the 
intellectual  brilliancy  of  Robertson's.  But  in  their 
ardent  affectionateness  they  remind  us  somewhat  of 
Schleiermacher's.  In  all  his  relations  with  his  friends 
we  note  an  increasing  hunger  of  heart  for  human 
companionship.  It  was  an  increasingly  lonely  life,  and 
he  lived  more  and  more  in  the  affections  of  his  friends. 


THE   CHRISTIAN   HUMANIST  205 

One  may  venture  the  suggestion,  and  indeed  the  biog- 
raphy leaves  the  impression,  that,  while  he  never  felt 
the  vocation  to  a  celibate  life,  as  Newman  tells  us  he 
did  from  the  age  of  fifteen  years,  it  may  have  been  the 
increasing  conviction  that  he  was  called  to  be  the  shep- 
herd of  many  souls,  and  that  in  this  calling  he  belonged 
too  exclusively  to  the  many,  to  sanction  the  venture  to 
limit  his  affections  by  domestic  life. 

In  his  relations  with  sister  churches  beyond  the  bor- 
ders of  his  own  communion ;  in  his  interest  in  the  prob- 
lems of  education,  of  poHtics,  of  reform,  of  philanthropic_ 
enterprise  ;  in  his  conception  of  religion,  of  theology,  and 
of  the  church  and  the  ministry ;  in  his  literary  culture ; 
in  the  anthropological  influences  that  disclose  themselves 
in  his  literary  style,  notably  in  his  genius  for  rhetorical 
personification,  in  which  it  seems  to  be  a  necessity  to 
put  a  human  soul'into  the  objects  of  his  thought,  —  one 
finds  the  trace  of  the  great  Christian  humanist,  the  great 
human  friend,  the  great  human  churchman.  His  reli- 
gion is  human,  his  theology  is  human,  and  it  becomes  the 
better  divinity  because  it  embodies  what  is  human  in  the 
heart  of  God.  It  is  this  large  humanity,  touched  by 
the  power  of  Christ,  cherished  and  enriched  by  fellow- 
ship with  Him,  that  contains  in  large  measure  the  secret 
of  his  power  over  men. 

This  gives  us  our  point  of  view.  In  furthering  our 
investigation  it  is  necessary  to  go  into  a  closer  analysis 
of  his  personality,  his  theology,  and  his  preaching. 
We  will  consider,  then,  the  man,  the  message,  and  the 
method. 


206       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

II 

THE   HARMONIOUS   PERSONALITY 

The  significance  of  a  harmoniously  developed,  sym- 
metrically trained,  and  religiously  consecrated  person- 
ality for  the  work  of  the  preacher  no  one  has  ever 
discussed  more  forcibly  or  persuasively,  or  perhaps 
realized  and  illustrated  in  experience  more  effectively, 
than  Phillips  Brooks.  It  is  the  personal  element  in 
his  preaching  that  is  largely  the  secret  of  its  power. 
Its  value  is  not  so  much  in  its  contribution  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  great  truths  of  religion,  not  so  much 
in  the  originality  of  his  thinking  or  in  the  weight  of  his 
thought,  as  in  his  personal  appropriation  of  Christian 
truth  and  in  his  interpretation  and  enforcement  of  it 
as  the  vital  experience  of  a  great  soul.  It  is  the  self- 
revealing,  manly  sincerity  of  it,  its  downrightness  and 
straightoutness,  its  fervid  intensity  of  conviction,  its 
sympathetic  identification  with  the  hearers'  needs,  its 
interpretation  of  what  is  most  human  that  awakens 
the  slumbering  echoes  of  the  soul,  its  outpouring  of  the 
vast  wealth  of  his  inner  life,  —  it  is  this  that  makes  the 
unfailing  impression.  In  personal  intercourse  he  ex- 
hibited a  Puritan  reserve  that  seemed  to  warn  men 
back  from  the  sanctuary  of  his  inner  life.  In  the  pri- 
vate records  of  his  growing  intellectual  life  there  is  but 
little  that  is  self -revealing  save  the  ferment  of  an  awak- 
ened mind.  But  the  preaching  is  always  self-revealing. 
Here  we  find  the  whole  man.  The  place  where  men 
find  God  is  the  place,  he  thinks,  where  they  should 
find  the  preacher  too ;   and  in  finding  him  in  the  ful- 


THE  HARMONIOUS  PERSONALITY  20/ 

ness  of  his  self-disclosure,  they  may  the  more  readily 
find  God. 

What  most  impresses  us  in  his  personality  is  the  har- 
monious blending  of  all  its  elements.  Professor  Allen 
has  reminded  us  of  the  profound  impression  which  the 
character  of  Lincoln  made  upon  him.  What  was  true 
in  Brooks's  estimate  of  Lincoln's  character  was  eminently 
true,  he  thinks,  of  Brooks  himself.  It  was  the  fusing 
of  the  processes  of  a  great  mind  with  the  emotions  of 
a  great  heart,  and  the  energies  of  a  strong,  steadfast 
will  that  seemed,  as  a  result,  to  leave  no  salient  points 
of  greatness.  It  was  as  if  Brooks  found  a  sort  of  self- 
interpretation  in  Lincoln.  We  are  also  reminded  of  his 
estimate  of  the  character  of  Christ,  in  whom  the  quali- 
ties are  so  blended  that  no  one  thing  is  obtrusively 
prominent,  or  rather  so  prominent  is  the  condescension, 
which  is  the  negation  of  all  obtrusiveness,  that  all  other 
elements  of  greatness  are  dwarfed  in  the  apprehension 
of  common  men.  So  closely  identified  are  the  intel- 
lectual and  ethical  with  the  spiritual  elements  of  His 
personality,  that  men  do  not  think  of  Him  as  the  mas- 
ter mind  that  is  subduing  the  intelligence  of  the  proud 
modern  world,  or  as  the  master  will  that  is  bringing 
every  knee  to  bow  to  Him.  And  one  would  think  it 
almost  a  profanation  to  speak  of  Christ  as  the  great 
Plato  or  the  great  Alexander  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
He  is  not  so  much  the  world's  great  religious  thinker 
and  organizer  as  the  compassionate,  comforting  man  of 
sorrows.  And  yet  it  is  precisely  the  great  intelligence 
and  the  strong,  steadfast  will  that  give  adequate  signifi- 
cance to  the  consecrated  heart.  Something  the  like 
may  be  said  of  the  personality  of  Phillips  Brooks  himself. 


208   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

There  is,  indeed,  a'  gradual  and  progressive  develop- 
ment of  the  elements  of  his  personality.  They  of 
course  do  not  all  emerge  simultaneously  into  manifesta- 
tion or  blend  in  unity  at  the  outset.  The  early  period 
has  been  regarded  as  characteristically  the  period  of 
mental  development.  The  early  products  of  his  reflec- 
tion disclose  the  bent  of  his  mind.  Ethical  and  spiritual 
qualities  are  less  prominent.  There  is  no  such  expres- 
sion of  the  moral  striving  of  the  soul  or  of  intense 
religious  feeling  as  we  find  in  the  youthful  Schleier- 
macher.  He  begins  with  his  beloved  human  world  and 
life,  that  speak  to  him  with  all  their  wondrous,  fascinating 
suggestiveness,  and  he  will  sound  their  depths,  if  may 
be,  with  the  plummet  of  his  intelligence.  His  mind  is 
going  forth  in  its  eager  quest  to  find  the  meaning  of  their 
wondrous  realities,  and  in  his  search  he  comes  back 
again,  as  from  the  vantage-ground  of  new  experiences, 
to  the  God  and  Father  of  his  childhood  days  and  to 
the  Christ  of  his  early  love  and  devotion ;  and  already, 
before  he  enters  upon  his  sacred  calling,  he  has  come  to 
a  fresh  sense  of  the  meaning  of  life,  a  new  recognition 
of  the  meaning  of  Christ  for  his  own  life  and  for  all 
human  Kfe.  And  this  awakening  to  the  greatness  of 
Christ  as  the  interpreter  of  God  and  the  interpreter  of 
all  life,  and  this  new  conviction  that  all  truth  and  all  life 
should  be  made  consecrate  to  Christ,  left  their  impress 
upon  his  entire  ministry.  If  in  the  early  period  the 
mental  development  was  prominent,  as  is  generally  the 
case,  and  in  the  mid  period  the  ethical,  in  the  comple- 
tion and  crown  of  his  development  we  have  the  out- 
pouring of  the  great  heart,  whose  tides  of  emotion  have 
been  gathering  volume  from  the  first  and  all  through 


THE   HARMONIOUS   PERSONALITY  209 

the  experiences  of  his  Hfe.  And  so  from  the  first  we 
see  the  unifying  process.  The  thinker  is  the  man  of 
action,  and  the  shepherd's  heart  inspires  all  noblest 
thought  and  achievement  in  his  devotion  to  the  welfare 
of  men. 

The  physical  equipment  was  symbol  of  his  soul ;  and 
the  rush  of  his  speech  was  typical  of  those  mental, 
moral,  and  spiritual  energies  that  were  fused  into  unity 
and  came  forth  in  a  stream  of  fiery  intensity.  The 
physical  stature  and  proportions,  towering  and  sym- 
metrical; the  manly  attitude,  poise,  and  bearing,  free 
and  unconscious  in  its  grace  ;  the  large,  dark  eyes,  mirth- 
ful, yet  serious,  speechf ul  of  all  moods  of  inner  intensity  ; 
the  well-set,  expressive  Hps ;  the  radiant  countenance ; 
the  full,  strong  voice,  not  well  managed,  but  full  of  feel- 
ing and  of  force,  —  all  this  was  fit  organ  for  the  inner 
manhood  that  struggled  to  put  itself  forth  in  advocacy 
of  the  truth  he  had  appropriated  and  assimilated  in  the 
love  of  man  and  for  the  uplifting  of  his  life. 

In  mental  as  in  physical  stature  he  was  large  and 
well-proportioned,  and  in  mental  movement  facile  and 
forceful.  The  quality  and  measure  of  his  productive- 
ness bear  witness  to  the  wealth  of  his  intellectual  life. 
The  notes  that  represent  his  mental  development  at 
the  age  of  nineteen  or  twenty  are  remarkable  for  their 
insight,  inventiveness,  and  maturity,  and  already  disclose 
the  man  of  genius.  He  had  not  the  intellectual  strength 
of  Bushnell,  nor  the  intellectual  penetration  of  Robert- 
son, nor  the  subtlety  of  Newman,  nor  the  analytic  skill 
of  Mozley,  nor  the  dogmatic  forcefulness  of  Liddon ; 
but  in  intellectual  inventiveness  and  productiveness  he 
was  almost  the  match  of  Beecher.     He  was  not  a  close 


210       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN    PREACHERS 

but  a  broad  thinker.  In  technical  Biblical  knowledge 
he  had  no  large  equipment,  but  he  was  a  most  ingenious 
and  suggestive  interpreter.  He  made  but  little  use  of 
logical  processes  in  his  discussion,  but  he  knew  the 
laws  of  thought  and  ordered  his  own  harmoniously.  He 
disliked  abstract  thought,  but  he  had  keen  insight  into 
the  inner  relations  of  religious  truth.  He  had  the 
Puritan  common  sense  that  chastened  his  ideaUsm  and 
tempered  the  fervors  of  his  emotion.  He  managed  the 
affairs  of  his  great  parish  with  discretion,  was  a  wise 
and  effective  bishop,  and  would  have  been  called,  had 
he  consented,  to  leadership  in  the  administration  of  two 
great  universities.  He  had  the  impulse  and  the  gifts  of 
the  teacher,  and  might  have  held  the  chair  of  church 
history  or  of  Christian  ethics.  He  was  not  without 
critical  acumen,  but  he  had  in  preponderance  the  crea- 
tive imagination  of  the  true  preacher,  and  preferred  the 
processes  of  mental  suggestion  to  those  of  mental 
elaboration.  What  distinguishes  his  mental  movement, 
therefore,  is  the  dominance  of  the  imagination,  and 
because  of  the  strength  of  it  he  early  disclosed  his 
inclination  for  the  literary  and  poetical,  rather  than  the 
scientific  or  philosophical,  interpretation  of  life.  His 
lines  of  mental  movement  do  not  lie  in  the  realm  of 
causality  or  of  contiguity  in  thought,  but  rather  of  con- 
sanguinity. It  was  the  analogical  rather  than  the 
logical  mind,  the  mind  that  looks  at  things  in  their 
resemblances,  that  readily  discerns  family  likenesses. 
Following  the  lines  of  mental  association,  occasionally 
the  line  of  causality  or  of  contiguity  of  thought,  but 
much  more  frequently,  indeed  almost  always,  the  lines 
of  resemblance,  he  steers  for  the  fundamental  fact  or 


THE   HARMONIOUS   PERSONALITY  211 

principle  that  underlies  the  various  realms  of  reality  or 
of  experience  upon  which  he  touches  and  that  holds 
them  all  in  the  unity  of  a  controlling  law.  There  is  a 
poetic  or  semi-poetic,  as  well  as  a  scientific  and  philo- 
sophical, use  of  the  imagination.  Science  and  philoso- 
phy group  the  materials  or  the  phenomena  with  which 
they  deal  under  family  likenesses;  they  classify  them 
under  general  laws.  Generalization  of  a  legitimate  sort 
in  any  sphere  is  in  fact,  though  it  may  not  be  in  name,  a 
process  that  corresponds  to  the  method  of  science  and 
philosophy.  Any  process  that  lays  hold  of  the  truth  in  its 
fundamental  principles  and  wide-reaching  family  rela- 
tions may  be  called  in  a  limited  sense  a  process  that  has 
philosophical  value.  Even  in  the  generalizations  of 
science  and  philosophy  the  use  of  the  imagination  is 
necessary,  but  of  course  they  are  based  upon  critical  judg- 
ment. The  preacher  uses  the  imagination  more  fully  and 
freely  in  laying  hold  of  the  fundamental  and  regulative 
principles  of  human  life  and  experience  and  of  the  great 
facts  and  truths  of  revelation.  This  was  the  method  of 
Phillips  Brooks.  Hence  he  was  an  interpreter.  For 
what  is  the  interpretation  of  life  or  of  revelation,  but 
the  classification  and  generalization  of  facts,  truths,  or 
experiences,  the  gathering  of  what  is  individual  under 
some  general  principle  or  law  ?  The  significance  of  any 
experience,  truth,  or  fact  is  known  only  by  its  family 
resemblances.  Phillips  Brooks's  habit  of  dealing  with 
general  religious  principles  was  a  sort  of  philosophic 
process  applied  to  the  teaching  of  religion.  His  pre- 
vailing didactic  method  was  analogy.  If  sometimes  in  the 
imaginative  suggestiveness  of  his  treatment  of  the  sub- 
ject in  discussion  he  threatens  to  lead  us  too  far  afield 


212       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

into  the  realm  of  fancy  and  of  sentiment,  his  strong 
common  sense,  his  balanced  judgment,  and  his  literary 
sanity  are  pretty  sure  to  rescue  him,  and,  although  his 
thought  may  be  highly  poetical  in  its  remote  resem- 
blances, it  is  still  marked  by  a  certain  moral  sobriety 
and  manly  strength  that  appeal  to  the  intelligence  of 
the  hearer.  Hence  he  may  be  called,  even  in  an 
eminent  degree,  a  didactic  preacher.  In  England  he 
was  regarded  as  eminently  such,  and  he  always  won  a 
hearing  from  the  educated  and  cultivated  classes.  He 
never  debated,  never  argued  his  subject,  and  never 
appealed  to  external  authority.  If  he  discusses  a  doc- 
trine like  that  of  the  Trinity,  it  is  not  the  church  form 
of  the  doctrine  that  engages  him.  It  is  his  purpose 
rather  to  detach  the  fundamental  principle  that  contains 
the  life  of  the  truth,  and  to  show  that  it  meets  our 
human  needs  and  finds  vindication  in  our  life  experi- 
ences. His  didactic  methods  are  among  the  most 
interesting  peculiarities  of  his  preaching. 

Considering  the  prominence  of  the  imaginative  ele- 
ment in  his  equipment,  there  are  not  wanting  those  who 
estimate  his  artistic  qualities  as  most  characteristic.  His 
aesthetic  endowment  and  outfit  were  certainly  notable. 
But  a  close  analysis  of  his  character  will  always  dis- 
close a  preponderance  of  the  ethical  over  the  aesthetic. 
In  his  apprehension  and  regard,  beauty  is  always  sub- 
ordinate. But  he  well  understood,  and  he  well  realized 
\  in  the  harmonious  blending  of  his  own  faculties,  the 
close  alliance  of  the  ethical  and  aesthetic.  His  own 
lofty  idealism  was  at  once  ethical  and  aesthetic.  It 
embraced  the  lofty  conception  of  a  moral  good  and  a 
moral  beauty  that  are   blended   in  inseparable   unity. 


THE   HARMONIOUS   PERSONALITY  213 

His  conceptions  of  God,  of  Christ,  of  humanity,  of  the 
individual  soul,  are  profoundly  ethical,  but  they  are 
strongly  aesthetic,  for  they  embody  conceptions  of 
supreme  beauty.  For  him  the  Supreme  Being  must 
be  the  realization  of  a  moral  perfection  that  is  absolute 
moral  beauty.  His  world- view  is  moral  and  aesthetic. 
Good  is  the  source,  good  is  the  goal,  and  good  is  the 
process  of  all  things;  and  this  supreme  good  is  the 
divine  order  and  beauty  of  a  universe  that  is  subhmest 
art.  All  life,  in  its  ideal  reaUty,  and  it  was  chiefly  in  its 
ideal  reality  that  he  would  behold  it,  is  supremely  true, 
supremely  good,  and  supremely  glorious.  Therefore 
he  loved  life,  like  a  Greek,  as  a  thing  of  beauty.  It 
was  the  necessity  of  his  nature  to  live  in  the  higher  in- 
terpretations of  life,  to  idealize  the  universe,  because  he 
believed  that  at  heart  the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beauti- 
ful are  one.  This  artistic  quality  in  his  nature  disclosed 
itself  in  his  tendency  to  personify  nature  under  forms 
of  poetic  beauty.  He  was  himself  no  insignificant  poet, 
and  he  had  the  quick  artistic  sense  for  all  its  products. 
He  gave  but  little  heed  to  form  in  his  own  poetic  prod- 
ucts ;  but  his  literary  form  in  the  sermon,  which  he 
treated  as  an  instrument  whose  supreme  value  is  in  the 
end  to  be  realized,  will,  by  its  affluence,  grace,  force, 
and  spontaneity,  perpetuate  his  influence.  He  was  a 
competent  critic  of  architecture,  and  Trinity  church  in 
Boston  is  in  part  the  witness  for  his  artistic  sense. 

His  moral  qualities  are  given  in  the  bent  of  his  nature, 
but  they  were  fruitfully  nurtured  by  his  profound  rev- 
erence for  the  moral  significance  of  life.  For  him  all 
life,  conscious  or  unconscious,  must  have  a  moral  goal, 
and  all  existence  is  known  only  in  its  end.     Even  the 


^ 


214       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

existence  of  God  has  an  end  beyond  itself  and  is  su- 
premely moral.  Will  is  the  centre  of  the  divine,  as  of 
all,  personality,  and  the  moral  end  of  God's  existence  is 
to  "  fulfil  himself  "  in  the  revelation  of  His  holy  perfec- 
tions to  His  rational  creation.  The  moral  significance 
of  Christ's  existence  on  earth  and  in  the  heavenly  world 
is  to  complete  the  realization  of  the  ideal  of  the  divine 
in  man,  to  disclose  what  is  human  in  God,  and  to  com- 
plete the  work  of  restoring  kinship  between  God  and 
man.  The  end  of  all  human  existence  is  the  realization 
of  the  ideal  of  moral  completeness.  With  Goethe  he 
held  that  the  end  of  life  is  to  live  in  the  realm  of  the 
true,  the  good,  and  the  complete.  The  material  universe 
itself,  as  the  revelation  of  God,  can  have  only  a  moral 
goal.  All  its  forces  are  pushing  it  on  to  the  "far-off 
divine  event,"  and  the  event  as  "divine"  can  only  be 
the  good.  It  is  the  glory  of  God  to  reveal  his  father- 
hood. It  is  the  glory  of  Christ  to  reveal  the  kinship  of 
the  divine  and  the  human.  It  is  the  glory  of  man  to 
disclose  his  sonship  with  God.  It  is  the  glory  of  the 
universe  to  complete  itself  as  the  kingdom  of  God.  It 
was  this  world  and  life  view  that  nurtured  his  moral  man- 
hood and  furthered  most  fruitfully  his  moral  develop- 
ment. This  in  large  measure  accounts  for  the  supreme 
stress  he  lays  upon  personality,  and  his  aversion  to  all 
that  is  merely  abstract  and  impersonal.  His  world  must 
be  alive  with  personality,  for  this  only  realizes  the  moral 
ideal  of  existence.  Hence  his  reverence  for  personal 
freedom.  It  is  the  moral  glory  of  man,  as  of  God,  that 
he  is  free,  for  only  in  freedom  can  he  realize  the  moral 
ends  of  his  existence;  therefore  he  guarded  most  sa- 
credly his  own  freedom.     That  he  was  accustomed  to 


THE   HARMONIOUS   PERSONALITY  21$ 

hedge  himself  about  with  a  reserve  that  seemed  to  warn 
men  against  intrusion  seemed  a  half-conscious  recogni- 
tion of  the  sacred  rights  of  his  personality.  He  reacted 
most  strenuously  against  the  fatalism  of  degenerate 
modern  life,  for  it  fails  to  recognize  moral  freedom  as 
the  chief  glory  of  manhood.  It  is  this  conception  of 
manhood  that  accentuates  his  love  of  intellectual  free- 
dom, his  jealousy  of  all  encroachments  of  arbitrary 
authority,  and  his  submission  to  rational  and  moral  au- 
thority as  the  condition  of  the  realization  of  a  larger  and 
truer  freedom,  and  the  more  complete  accomplishment 
of  the  moral  ends  of  existence.  Tolerance  is  with  him 
only  a  recognition  of  the  freedom  of  the  soul  in  the 
realization  of  its  moral  and  intellectual  tasks.  In  order 
to  accomplish  the  moral  ends  of  his  own  existence  he 
must  be  free,  and  other  men  within  their  own  spheres 
must  be  equally  free,  hence  also  his  reverence  for  the 
truth  as  a  moral  good  and  as  tributary  to  the  moral  ends 
of  life.  Truth  is  not  an  end,  but  an  instrument.  It  has 
moral  worth;  it  is  tributary  to  life.  Life  is  the  end; 
truth  is  the  means  for  realizing  that  end.  Doctrine  has 
value  only  as  it  builds  character  and  regulates  conduct. 
To  be  is  the  supreme  end ;  to  know,  a  subordinate  end. 
Hence  the  speculative  intellect  can  never  become  an 
adequate  organ  of  knowledge.  Knowledge  is  a  virtue 
only  as  it  relates  itself  to  the  will,  hence  the  increasing 
emphasis  put  by  him  upon  the  moral  factor  in  men's 
lives  and  upon  the  reUgion  of  obedience.  Knowledge, 
sentiment,  imagination,  feeling,  all  are  subordinate  to 
the  obedient  will.  Not  less  earnestly,  but  more  wisely, 
than  Newman  did  he  proclaim,  and  with  increasing 
urgency,  that  it  is  the  end   and   the   glory  of   man's 


2l6   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

existence  to  know  and  to  do  the  will  of  God.  Because 
of  this  moral  conception  of  life  was  he  an  optimist.  The 
freedom,  the  spontaneity,  the  reality,  the  cheerfulness, 
joy  fulness,  exuberant  hopefulness,  and  resistless  en- 
thusiasm of  his  spirit  were  only  in  part  the  gift  of  nature. 
It  was  his  moral  optimism  that  kept  him,  as  it  kept 
Schleiermacher,  in  perpetual  youth.  He  knew  the  dark 
side  of  life,  but,  like  Emerson,  he  refused  to  linger  with 
it.  He  must  find  an  ideal  world  behind  the  dark  and 
sinful  realities  of  life,  and  so  bright  was  it  in  his  vision 
that  it  irradiated  the  darkness  and  the  sin,  and  they  were 
lost  in  the  "glory  that  excelleth."  It  was  this  steady 
uplift  of  soul  that  strengthened  his  will  and  held  him 
steadfast  to  his  purpose  to  give  himself  to  the  ennobling 
and  enriching  of  the  lives  of  men.  Hence  the  practical 
character  of  his  preaching ;  truth  for  the  sake  of  life ; 
life  for  the  sake  of  realizing  the  supreme  moral  ends  of 
existence.  The  whole  substance,  the  entire  tone  and  dic- 
tion, of  his  preaching  bear  the  mark  of  this  optimistic 
view  of  life  and  of  his  supreme  purpose  to  help  men 
interpret  their  lives  aright,  and  to  realize  the  final  pur- 
pose of  their  existence. 

Behind  his  ethical  optimism  was  his  spiritual  idealism  ; 
behind  his  faith  in  the  good  and  his  devotion  to  its  ends, 
his  faith  in  God  and  fellowship  with  Him ;  behind  his 
ethical  virtues,  his  religious  virtues ;  behind  the  moral 
ideal  of  life,  the  religious  ideal.  His  world  was  the 
world  of  spirit.  God,  as  the  ground  of  all  things,  the  per- 
vasive presence  in  all  things,  and  the  goal  of  all  things, 
is  the  supreme  reality.  That  vision  of  soul,  that  sense 
of  the  invisible  and  eternal,  we  call  faith,  was  one  of  his 
choicest  gifts,  and  it  was  nourished  by  all  the  choicest 


THE   HOPE-BEARING   MESSAGE  217 

sources  of  his  culture,  and  all  the  great  experiences  of 
his  life.  The  faith  faculty  enlarged,  and  he  lived  ever 
more  increasingly  "as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible." 
And  the  faith  that  is  vision  is  also  the  faith  that  trusts 
and  lives  in  fellowship  with  its  object.  It  was  this  that 
was  the  spring  of  all  his  choicest  sympathies,  not  his 
contact  with  humanity,  not  the  literature  that  fertilizes 
a  great  human  heart,  but  a  sense  of  moral  alliance  with 
God,  a  sense  of  identification  with  Him.  The  great 
human  heart,  turned  Godward  in  the  consciousness  of 
oneness  with  Him,  found  its  message,  and  made  him 
prophetic  in  his  utterance.  Then,  as  from  the  fountain 
of  eternal  inspiration,  it  turned  itself  manward  and 
uttered  itself  forth  with  a  power  of  conviction  and  per- 
suasion and  comfort  and  inspiration  that  was  unmatched 
by  the  preachers  of  his  generation. 

Ill 

THE  HOPE-BEARING  MESSAGE 

When  we  speak  of  a  preacher's  message,  we  com- 
monly have  in  mind  the  truth  he  interprets  and  advo- 
cates with  such  sympathetic  earnestness  and  strength 
of  moral  conviction  that  it  seems  somehow  to  suggest 
that  the  man  has  a  special  call  from  God  to  utter  it. 
It  presupposes  such  appropriation  and  assimilation  of 
the  truth  by  the  preacher  that  it  becomes  a  personal, 
mental,  moral,  and  spiritual  possession.  It  also  pre- 
supposes such  insight  into  the  needs  of  one's  fellow- 
men,  such  devotion  to  their  higher  welfare,  and  so 
strong  an  inward  didactic  and  ethical  impulse,  that  he  is 


2l8   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

constrained,  as  by  a  sort  of  divine  compulsion,  to  com- 
municate the  truth  to  them.  This  is  substantially  what 
we  mean  when  we  say  that  the  truth  is  given  as  a  mes- 
sage, and  that  the  preacher  is  summoned  as  a  messenger 
to  proclaim  it.  And  this  is  what  we  call  the  prophetic 
gift.  It  does  not  fully  realize  all  that  is  contained  in 
the  Biblical  conception.  But  this  is  what  we  mean  by 
the  modern  prophet.  The  prophet  is  the  man  who  is 
conscious  of  an  inner  constraint  so  to  communicate  the 
truth  that  it  shall  be  a  compelling  power  in  the  souls 
and  lives  of  other  men.  All  rehgious  truth,  therefore, 
that  is  really  preached  becomes  a  message.  But  it  is 
only  the  truth  that  is  charged  with  the  energy  of  per- 
sonal life,  and  that  aims  at  the  reproduction  of  itself 
in  the  personal  life  of  other  men,  that,  for  the  preacher, 
has  the  character  of  a  message.  From  this  point  of 
view  it  may  be  said  of  no  modern  preacher  more  truly 
or  more  worthily  than  of  Phillips  Brooks,  that  the  truth 
he  brought  was  a  message,  and  of  none  may  it  be  said 
more  appropriately  than  of  him  that  he  had  the  pro- 
phetic gift.  Phillips  Brooks  did  not  have  much  to  say 
about  his  message,  and  did  not  claim  the  consciousness 
of  a  supernatural  call  to  be  the  messenger  of  God  to 
men.  Such  a  claim  would  doubtless  have  seemed  to 
him  pretentious  and  unreal.  To  him  the  divine  call 
was  no  ghostly  and  exceptional  thing,  remote  from  the 
genuine  experiences  of  common  human  life.  To  him 
it  was  the  simplest  and  most  natural  thing  in  the  world 
that  he  should  feel  constrained  to  tell  men  what  had 
become  so  mighty  a  force  in  his  own  soul.  He  held 
that  it  is,  in  fact,  the  vocation  of  every  man,  each  in  his 
"V     own  way,  if  he  only  knew  it,  to   bear  witness   to   the 


THE   HOPE-BEARING   MESSAGE  219 

truth  that  is  in  him  and  that  not  to  know  this  as  life's 
vocation  is  a  deplorable  ignorance,  and  that  not  to 
actualize  it  is  a  deplorable  wrong.  All  men  should 
feel  impelled  to  communicate  the  grace  they  have  re- 
ceived. All  men  should  have  a  message  for  their  fel- 
lows. Every  man  in  whose  heart  is  the  apostolic 
message  and  who  has  the  gift  and  the  grace  to  give 
it  to  others  is  in  apostolic  succession.  This  man  of 
prophetic  and  apostolic  gift  and  grace  handled  the 
truth  that  was  in  him  as  if  it  were  his  message ;  and 
this  consciousness  of  a  mighty  inner  constraint  to  bring 
the  truth  to  men,  as  if  he  were  bringing  a  message,  con- 
tained implicitly  the  presupposition  that  his  truth  was  a 
gift  from  God  for  the  sake  of  his  fellow-men,  and  that 
he  was  called  to  be  God's  messenger. 

But  there  was  a  good  deal  of  truth  held  by  him  that 
did  not  appear  in  his  message.  He  knew  more  theology 
than  appeared  in  his  preaching.  The  general  public 
has  but  little  knowledge  of  his  teaching  of  religion  in 
the  class  room.  One  fancies  that  he  may  have  followed 
in  the  class  room  very  nearly  the  same  general  method 
that  he  followed  in  the  pulpit;  and  yet  he  would 
doubtless  recognize  the  necessity  of  a  more  careful 
exposition  of  the  forms  in  which  the  theology  of  his 
church  was  expressed,  and  of  vindicating  the  truth  thus 
expressed  in  the  court  of  Christian  intelligence.  His 
work  in  the  class  room,  therefore,  may  have  been  in 
some  respects  different  from  his  work  in  the  pulpit,  for 
teaching  is  not  preaching.  But  it  is  evident  enough 
that  the  stock  of  his  preaching  was  conditioned  by  the 
form  and  measure  of  his  own  experience  of  the  truth. 
For  him  experience  was   primarily  and  practically  the 


220       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

norm  of  all  truth  that  may  be  presented  to  men  in  the 
form  of  a  message.  In  the  pulpit  he  therefore  inter- 
preted only  what  he  could  advocate  as  essential  to 
religious  experience  and  as  regulative  of  religious  life. 
For  preaching  must  be  a  message  of  moral  conviction 
and  of  spiritual  sympathy.  Hence  his  preaching  dealt 
with  th^e  great  practical  realities  of  Christianity.  They 
appeared  in  a  great  variety  of  forms,  and  with  great 
wealth  of  illustration  ;  but  they  were  the  ever  recurring, 
simple,  fundamental  realities  of  a  Christianity  that  is 
life.  This  conception  of  the  preacher's  vocation  condi- 
tioned his  attitude  toward  the  theology  of  his  church. 
It  was  a  conviction  that  took  possession  of  him  in  the 
early  years  of  professional  study,  and  constantly  strength- 
ened in  the  later  years  of  professional  life,  that  it  is 
not  the  preacher's  function  to  assume  on  the  one  side 
the  attitude  of  the  critic,  nor  on  the  other  side  the  at- 
titude of  the  advocate  of  the  theology  of  the  church. 
Apparently  the  theology  of  the  evangelical  school  in 
which  he  was  educated  never  had  a  very  strong  hold  of 
his  intellectual  Hfe.  His  own  intellectual  virility  and 
independence  gradually  reacted  against  it;  and  the 
encouragement  he  must  have  received  from  his  large- 
minded  teacher  of  dogmatics  in  the  divinity  course  set 
him  forward  doubtless  still  more  determinately  in  the 
path  of  intellectual  freedom.  However  this  may  be,  it 
is  clear  enough  that  intellectual  independence  was  a 
necessity  for  him.  And  it  is  a  matter  for  profound 
gratitude  that  the  evangelical  piety  in  which  he  was 
nurtured  outlived  the  disintegration  of  the  evangelical 
theology  in  which  he  had  been  educated,  and  that,  as 
in  the  cases  of  Schleiermacher,  Robertson,  Beecher,  and 


THE   HOPE-BEARING   MESSAGE  221 

Bushnell,  it  remained  to  the  end.  But  if  he  must  as- 
sume an  independent  attitude  toward  the  theology  of  his 
church,  he  must  not  become  its  critic.  The  attitude  of 
the  preacher  is  first  of  all  the  attitude  of  the  interpreter, 
and  then  that  of  the  advocate,  of  such  back-lying  truths 
as  interpretation  finds  useful  for  practical  life.  It  is  the 
preacher's  calling  neither  to  throw  doubt  upon  the  theo- 
logical formularies  of  the  church,  nor  to  defend  them  as 
a  theological  partisan.  He  was,  therefore,  neither  a 
radical  iconoclast  nor  a  dogmatic  confessionalist.  The 
creeds  of  the  church  are  not  necessarily  inerrant, 
and  are  not  to  be  accepted  as  final  statements  of  the 
theology  of  the  church,  nor  are  they  to  be  set  aside 
as  valueless  for  Christian  faith  and  life.  He  held 
stoutly  to  the  Protestant  position  of  the  right  of  the  in- 
dividual soul,  and  especially  of  the  right  of  the  teacher 
of  rehgion  to  validate  the  truth  in  experience,  and  to 
determine  how  far  the  symbols  of  the  church  express 
the  truth  that  is  essential  to  the  soul's  well-being.  But 
Professor  Allen  has  directed  attention  to  the  fact  that, 
notwithstanding  his  passionate  love  of  intellectual  free- 
dom, he  was,  in  the  process  of  his  religious  development, 
increasingly  convinced  that  "sympathy,"  not  "  liberty," 
is  the  word  that  most  adequately  suggests  the  proper 
attitude  of  the  Christian  preacher,  for  it  "expresses  the 
chord  that  binds  the  human  race."^  He  knew  that  the 
individual  Christian  consciousness  is  largely  a  product 
of  the  historic  consciousness  of  the  church.  If  it  is  pos- 
sible for  the  individual  soul  in  its  freedom  to  enlarge  the 
boundaries  of  the  truth  it  has  received  from  tradition,  it 
is  not  the  less  true  that  the  collective  consciousness  of 

1 «  Biography,"  Vol.  II,  p.  486. 


V 


222       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN    PREACHERS 

the  church  lays  the  foundation  for  that  enlargement. 
Hence  his  position  that  the  creeds  of  the  church  contain 
a  substantial  body  of  truth,  which  it  is  the  preacher's 
calling,  neither  on  the  one  hand  to  challenge  or  deny, 
nor  on  the  other  hand  unconditionally  to  defend,  but 
rather  to  interpret,  and  by  thus  intelHgently  and  sympa- 
thetically interpreting,  to  detach  the  inner  substance  of 
the  great  truths  which  contain  that  message  which  be- 
comes tributary  to  the  continuous  development  of  the 
life  of  the  church.  This  position,  which  he  seems  to  have 
reached  with  relative  independence  of  others,  reminds 
us  of  Robertson,  and  is  in  general  the  Broad  churchman's 
position.  It  has  its  difficulties.  It  doubtless  results  in 
a  certain  vagueness  of  theological  definition  and  even 
of  conception,  and  it  taxes  the  skill  and  sometimes  the 
candor  of  the  preacher.  But  it  is  difficult  to  see  how 
otherwise  the  interests  of  tradition  and  of  freedom  can 
be  conserved,  or,  in  a  word,  how  the  collective  and  the 
individual  Christian  consciousness  can  be  harmonized. 

To  interpret  the  theological  views  of  Phillips  Brooks, 
as  they  appear  in  his  preaching,  is  not  an  altogether 
easy  task.  They,  of  course,  do  not  appear  in  scientific 
form  and  they  bear  the  mark  of  his  exuberant  rhetoric. 
They  are  characterized  by  the  vagueness  and  indeter- 
minateness  that  are  doubtless  admissible  in  a  rhetorical 
and  popular  presentation  of  the  truth,  but  which  are, 
nevertheless,  sometimes  tantalizingly  elusive.  But  the 
task  is  not  an  impossible  one,  although  confessedly  the 
effort  may  seem  inadequate. 

In  stating  some  of  the  chief  aspects  of  his  message, 
let  us  begin  with  his  conception  of  religion.  Religion 
is  human.    It  is  the  most  human  thing  in  man,  for  it  has 


THE   HOPE-BEARING   MESSAGE  223 

its  indestructible  source  in  his  spirit,  which  is  the  most 
distinctive  characteristic  of  his  manhood.  Its  incentives 
are  indeed  from  without,  but  its  substance,  its  essence, 
is  within.  It  may  be  evoked  from  within;  it  cannot 
be  brought  from  without.  It  may  be  stimulated ;  it 
cannot  be  created.  It  belongs  to  man  as  man,  and  he  is 
normal,  he  is  truly  human,  only  in  so  far  as  he  is  religious. 
The  irreligious  man  is  by  reason  of  his  irreligion  so 
much  the  less  a  man.  Nothing  therefore  is  added  to 
the  man  when  he  becomes  religious.  It  is  no  ghostly 
experience,  but  as  truly  human  as  the  most  familiar 
experience  of  the  soul.  In  it  the  soul  only  appropriates 
its  own  best  ideal,  and  enters  upon  the  harmonious 
development  of  all  its  powers.  This  is  not  new.  It  is, 
in  fact,  one  of  the  commonplaces  of  the  religious  intelli- 
gence of  our  time.  But  it  is  the  rediscovery  of  an 
anthropology  and  a  theology  that  are,  after  all,  not  so 
very  old.  It  is  a  truth  that  demands  constant  emphasis, 
and  no  modern  preacher  has  more  persuasively  enforced 
it  or  more  intelligently  interpreted  it  than  Phillips 
Brooks.  He  seems  to  have  no  definite  psychology  of 
religion,  and  gives  no  scientific  definition  of  it,  nor  is  it 
necessary  that  he  should  do  so,  for  his  representations 
are  worth  more  than  definitions.  Religion  is  a  talent,  a 
faculty  or  combination  of  faculties  of  the  soul,  a  state 
of  consciousness,  an  activity,  a  relation  or  complex  of 
relations  of  the  soul,  but  what  it  is  and  how  to  locate  it 
is  not  always  easy.  The  locality  varies.  It  is  now  here, 
now  there.  It  is  now  this,  now  that.  It  is  not  pri- 
marily thought,  although  religion  cannot  be  divorced 
from  thought.  It  is  not  in  the  imagination  primarily, 
although   the  imagination  becomes  one  of  its  most  im- 


224       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 


■-\ 


portant  organs.  Sometimes  it  appears  in  the  conscience, 
sometimes  in  the  feelings  and  affections,  and  it  is  never 
fully  at  home  outside  the  will.  But  for  the  most  part 
religion  is  not  located  at  all.  It  is  not  quite  correct  to 
speak  of  one  part  of  a  man's  nature  as  being  religious 
and  another  part  as  unreligious  or  non-religious.  Man 
is  religious  in  the  totality  of  his  nature.  There  is  an 
intellectual  element  in  religion.  We  are  commanded  to 
"  love  God  with  all  the  mind."  He  had  thorough  respect 
for  the  intellectual  factor  in  religion  and  laid  much 
stress  upon  it.  There  is  an  aesthetic  element  in  it  which 
realizes  itself  in  artistic  form.  Religion  is  the  soul 
turning  in  all  its  functionings  toward  the  personal  In- 
visible and  Eternal.  And  as  religion  had  better  not  be 
located  within,  so  it  had  better  not  be  located  without. 
Of  course  he  would  freely  acknowledge  that  determi- 
nate times  and  places  and  persons  and  events  and  ex- 
periences have  a  specific  religious  significance.  Not, 
however,  because  they  hold  religion  as  a  monopoly,  but 
because  they  are  associated  with  religion  as  a  specific 
interest.  But  the  prevaiHng  representation  is  that,  in  its 
true  conception,  all  life  is  religious.  In  its  true  concep- 
f  tion  the  universe  is  the  temple  of  religion.  *'  Reli- 
'  gion,"  he  says,  "  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  the  highest 
conception  of  life."  All  life,  all  time,  place,  person, 
events,  experiences,  are  in  their  ideal  significance 
religious.  The  profane,  the  sinful,  is  just  the  failure 
to  realize  this  significance.  Here  we  have  the  Broad 
churchman,  and  such  we  may  almost  say  Phillips  Brooks 
was  constitutionally.  He  reacted  vigorously  against  the 
localizing  of  religion,  and  had  no  sympathy  with  High 
Church   religious   provincialism.      Of  course  he  could 


THE   HOPE-BEARING  MESSAGE  22$ 

not  and  would  not  deny  that  God  can  and  does  reveal 
Himself  at  one  time,  or  in  one  place  or  person  or  event 
or  experience  more  fully  than  in  another.  Surely  he 
would  not  deny  that  religious  experiences  may  be  con- 
ditioned by  local  and  temporal  associations,  or  that  when 
so  conditioned  religion  becomes  specific.  But  it  was 
religion  as  a  universal  interest  that  dominated  his  con- 
ception, and  his  appeal  to  men,  that  they  consecrate  the 
whole  soul  and  body  with  all  their  powers,  and  the 
whole  life  with  all  its  activities,  to  God  and  to  His  king- 
dom, was  one  of  great  worth  and  power.  But  he  might 
well  perhaps  have  qualified  his  message  sometimes,  and 
have  recognized  more  fully  the  pedagogic  significance 
of  rehgion  as  a  specific  interest ;  and  if  he  had  been,  like 
Robertson,  as  close  and  discriminating  as  he  was  broad 
in  his  thinking,  he  very  likely  would  have  done  so. 

As  in  his  conception  the  soul  in  the  totality  of  its  pow- 
ers is  religious,  so  the  soul  in  the  totality  of  its  activi- 
ties becomes  the  organ  of  religious  knowledge.  And 
here  we  have  the  modern  psychologist,  and  the  modern 
advocate  of  the  religion  of  experience  as  contrasted 
with  the  religion  of  authority.  It  is  this  rich  and  fruit- 
ful conception  of  religion  that  contributes  so  much  to 
the  message  which  reveals  men  to  themselves  and 
awakens  their  manhood  to  its  higher  possibilities. 

As  being  truly  human,  religion  therefore  is  natural. 
The  unnatural  thing  is  irrehgion.  He  who  has  not  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  himself  as  religious  is  abnormal. 
Even  what  we  call  the  supernatural  element  in  religion 
is  natural,  in  so  far  and  in  as  much  as  it  harmonizes 
with  the  constitution  of  the  soul.  When  God  comes  to 
awaken  the  soul  and  to  evoke  its  latent  religious  sus- 

Q 


/ 


226       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ceptibilities  and  capacities  he  does  it  no  violence.  The 
response  of  the  soul  is  as  natural  as  the  response  of 
nature  to  light  or  air,  and  failure  to  respond  is  abnormal. 

And  as  being  human  and  natural,  religion  is  simple. 
The  fundamental  things  are  always  simple.  All  the 
primal  activities  of  the  soul  are  simple,  and  reUgion 
belongs  to  these  primal  and  normal  activities.  What  is 
more  simple,  or  more  human  and  natural,  than  love  or 
trust  or  reverence  or  obedience  .'*  These  are  the  primal 
and  the  simple  activities  of  the  soul,  and  they  contain 
the  elements  of  religion.  Turned  Godward  and  Christ- 
ward,  they  are  religion. 

Although  religion  is  subjective  in  its  elements,  it  is 
not  in  its  development  a  purely  human  product.  As  an 
endowment,  it  is  human ;  as  an  experience,  it  is  divine. 
As  bedded  in  our  nature,  it  is  God's  gift  through  crea- 
tion ;  as  dependent  on  Him  for  its  incentive  and  for  its 
full  content,  it'is  His  gift  through  grace.  We  do  not 
first  know  Him ;  He  first  knows  us.  In  establishing  our 
relations,  the  initiative  is  with  Him.  He  first  comes  to 
us.  He  first  loves  us,  and  in  the  language  of  Dr.  Bush- 
nell,  "  Loving  God  is  but  letting  God  love  us."  No  Cal- 
vinist  ever  more  strenuously  insisted  than  he  did  upon 
the  "  priority  of  God."  A  purely  self-wrought  religion 
is  for  him  a  contradiction.  At  best  it  would  be  only  a 
form  of  ethics.  Most  urgently  does  he  proclaim  the 
freedom  of  man  and  defend  the  humanness  and  natural- 
ness of  religion  as  a  truth  that  ever  needs  enforcement ; 
but  it  is,  in  fact,  the  burden  of  his  message  that  religion 
is  realized  as  a  mutual,  conscious  relation  between  God 
and  man  only  because  God  has  the  initiative  in  its 
realization.     Religion   on    man's   part  is  a  relation  of 


THE  HOPE-BEARING   MESSAGE  22/ 

conscious  dependence  on  God,  but  it  is  realized  only 
because  God  makes  Himself  known  as  a  creative  and 
sustaining  energy.  If  religion  is  realized  as  a  relation 
of  conscious  subjection,  it  is  because  God  makes  Him- 
self known  as  a  moral  authority.  If  it  is  realized  as  a 
relation  of  moral  alliance,  it  is  because  God  makes  Him- 
self known  in  loving  sympathy  as  the  Father  of  spirits. 
In  a  word,  only  because  God  moves  upon  the  soul  in  the 
processes  of  His  self-communication  do  we  ever  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  our  relation  with  Him  which  is  the 
experience  of  religion.  Hence  while  all  men  are  consti- 
tutionally religious,  they  are  experimentally  such  only  as 
they  are  recipients  of  the  self-revealing  grace  of  God. 
Hence  revelation  and  religion  are  inseparable.  And  as 
there  is  no  "natural  religion"  save  in  the  sense  that 
all  religion  is  natural,  so  there  is  no  "  revealed  religion  " 
save  in  the  sense  that  all  religion  is  revealed.  The  dis- 
tinction therefore  between  a  certain  type  of  religion  that 
may  be  called  "  natural "  and  another  type  that  may  be 
called  **  revealed  "  is  an  unreal  distinction.  All  religion 
is  at  once  natural  and  supernatural,  natural  in  endow- 
ment, supernatural  in  incentive  ;  and  the  distinction  be- 
tween religions  is  in  the  sort  and  measure  of  revelation 
they  embody. 

This  revelation  of  God  which  is  the  inspiration  of 
religion  is  the  revelation  of  His  personality,  of  Himself. 
Revelation  is  not  truth  and  religion  is  not  knowledge. 
Revelation  is  a  divine  activity  upon  the  soul  that  dis- 
closes the  presence  of  God,  and  religion  is  a  resulting 
life.  But  such  a  self-communication  of  God  involves 
the  disclosure  of  truth,  and  the  very  idea  of  God  in  its 
Christian  form  is  a  product  of  revelation.     Hence  the 


228       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

preacher  deals  with  a  given  content  of  truth.  This 
truth  involves  conceptions  and  facts  about  God.  God 
is  not  only  immediately  self-revealed  to  the  individual 
soul,  He  also  comes  mediately  to  the  soul  through  the 
religious  consciousness  of  others — through  a  community 
consciousness  ;  and  this  religious  consciousness  of  the 
race  is  a  product  of  divine  revelation  in  all  ages.  The 
Bible  is  a  record  of  this  self-revelation  of  God  in  other 
ages  to  a  certain  favored  section  of  the  race.  The  high- 
est form  of  this  revelation  is  through  the  historic  Christ. 
The  Bible  therefore  is  preeminently  the  preacher's  book. 
He  laid  great  stress  upon  the  personal  factor  in  preach- 
ing, but  he  laid  proportionate  stress  upon  the  factor  of 
truth  which  is  fixed  for  us  in  Scripture.  Hence  he  was 
V  himself  a  Biblical  preacher,  not  in  the  same  way  that 
Robertson  was,  nor  as  Bushnell  was,  but  not  less  than 
either  in  the  fibre  and  tone  of  his  preaching.  He 
appeals  to  the  native  intelligence  of  men,  but  the  stock 
of  his  preaching  is  not  rationalizing  reflection.  He 
appeals  to  the  human  conscience,  but  the  appeal  is  not 
a  rationalistic  moralizing.  He  speaks  to  the  imagination 
and  the  sentiments  and  the  emotions  of  the  heart,  but 
the  basis  of  his  preaching  is  not  subjective  mystical 
sentiment.  He  appeals  freely  to  all  the  faculties  of 
the  soul,  he  throws  himself  out  upon  the  most  ordinary 
experiences  of  men  in  the  real  world,  but  he  uses  experi- 
ence only  to  confirm  the  truth  of  revelation  and  above 
all  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ.  Thus,  while  life 
interprets  truth,  truth  interprets  life.  He  highly  values 
and  freely  uses  the  Old  Testament,  finding  in  its  dis- 
closures of  God  a  fruitful  source  of  knowledge,  and  in 
its  records  of  religious  experience  a  source  of  strong 


THE   HOPE-BEARING  MESSAGE  229 

incentive ;  but  he  is  preeminently  a  Christian  preacher, 
finding  in  Christ  the  divine  revelation  in  ideal  form. 
Authority  in  religion  does  not  depend  on  the  infallibility 
of  the  Bible.  The  Bible  is  not  authority,  but  only  a-^^ 
record  of  the  source  of  authority.  Authority  is  found  / 
in  those  compelling  truths  and  facts  that  find  an  echo 
in  the  moral  and  religious  nature  of  man,  and  above 
all  in  the  mind  of  Christ  or  in  His  full  personal  mani- 
festation, and  Biblical  authority  is  ultimately  the  author-^ 
ity  of  Christ.  And  His  authority  consists  not  wholly  in 
the  self-evidencing  power  of  His  truth,  but  in  the  vali- 
dating power  of  His  complete  personality.  We  know 
Him  for  what  He  is,  and  then  we  believe  Him  in  what 
He  says.  We  take  His  truth,  not  only  because  it  is  self- 
vindicating,  but  we  take  many  things  on  His  authority, 
and  trust  Him  when  we  cannot  see  and  follow  Him 
where  we  cannot  go  alone.  Thus  experience  and  reve- 
lation, or  the  subjective  and  objective  factors  in  author- 
ity, are  harmonized. 

The  God  who  is  revealed  in  Christ  is  intensely  per- 
sonal. All  the  energies  of  his  own  intense  personality 
and  above  all  the  energies  of  his  own  sturdy  moral 
nature  impelled  him  to  the  recognition  of  God  as  a  free 
moral  personaHty.  God  is  not  known  by  reflection.  He 
is  already  given  as  a  basis  for  reflection.  He  is  known 
primarily  through  that  subconscious  process  by  which 
we  transfer  our  own  knowledge  of  personal  will  to 
what  we  recognize  as  the  ground  of  all  things.  It  is 
the  necessity  of  our  own  consciousness  of  freedom  to 
ascribe  free  personality  to  the  world-ground.  We  thus 
subconsciously  come  to  know  God  through  ourselves. 
Tradition  and  reflection  confirm  what  is  already  given, 


230   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

That  God  is  also  revealed  in  a  historic  person  like 
Christ  greatly  intensified  and  enriched  his  conception 
of  His  personality.  This  centre  of  God's  personality 
is  will.  Will  is  centralized  energy.  It  is  an  energy 
that  turns  back  upon  itself.  The  divine  personality  is 
conscious  centralized  force.  But  the  will  of  God  is 
also  a  loving  will.  Hence  it  reaches  beyond  itself. 
The  divine  personality  is  a  loving  personality.  Love  is 
social.  It  is  creative,  outreaching,  self-revealing,  self- 
giving.  God  is  fatherly  in  His  very  nature.  He  is 
personal  will,  but  more ;  He  is  a  diffusive,  a  pervasive, 
all-loving  energy  of  life.  In  his  outreaching  fatherly 
love,  He  is  creative.  In  the  very  act  of  creation,  as 
even  the  Buddhist  teaches,  there  is  a  certain  sacrifice  of 
self-giving.  Self-sacrificing  love  is  also  the  principle 
of  redemption.  That  word  "  Father  "  as  applied  to  the 
God  of  love,  is  no  unmeaning  term.  It  suggests  that 
there  is  something  human  in  God.  The  divine  is  the 
human  carried  into  the  infinite  of  rational  and  moral 
perfection.  It  is  this  God  of  fatherly  love  that  comes 
into  personal  contact  with  every  human  soul.  God  is 
immanent  as  a  living,  loving  presence,  not  only  in  all 
forms  of  the  material  universe,  but  in  every  soul  of  His 
rational  and  moral  creation.  The  divine  centrality  and 
the  divine  ubiquity,  the  supreme  will,  the  supreme  love, 
not  ourselves,  yet  nearer  to  us  than  ourselves,  for  "  in 
Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being,"  —  here  we 
have  in  its  most  attractive  and  persuasive  form  the 
modern  theistic  pantheism. 

Because  of  the  kinship  between  God  and  man  an  in- 
carnation of  the  divine  in  the  human  is  possible,  and 
the  incarnation  in  Christ  is  not  only  a  historic  fact,  but, 


THE   HOPE-BEARING   MESSAGE  23 1 

as  involving  a  reconciliation  between  God  and  man,  and 
a  permanent  moral  alliance  between  them,  it  is  the 
great  central  fact  of  theology  and  of  history,  and  con- 
tains the  mightiest  motive  for  the  Christian  life.  Of 
the  very  few  theological  or  ecclesiastical  terms  used 
by  him,  this  is  of  most  frequent  occurrence,  and  this 
indicates  its  importance  in  his  theological  thinking.  Of 
the  person  of  Christ  he  has  no  definition.  His  defini- 
tions are  only  representations.  His  Christology  is 
vague,  as  all  modern  Christology  is,  and  perhaps  must 
be.  It  is  the  character  of  Christ  with  which  he  for  the 
most  part  concerns  himself,  and  with  His  person  only 
as  related  to  His  character.  In  His  personality  He  is 
ideal  humanity.  What  each  human  being  in  his  own 
limited  measure  was  made  to  be,  that  was  Christ  in 
His  complete  measure.  But  although  truly  human, 
sharing  the  humanity  that  is  common  to  us  all,  He  is 
still  uniquely  human,  and  this  uniqueness  is  not  appar- 
ently in  the  sinless  perfection  of  His  humanity  alone, 
but  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  divine  humanity.  He  shares 
the  nature  of  God  so  far  as  the  nature  of  God  is  akin 
to  the  nature  of  man,  and  thus  He  unites  the  humanity 
of  God,  so  to  say,  with  the  humanity  of  man.  But 
although  we  have  here  no  well-defined  ontological 
Christ,  we  have  a  most  exalted  conception  of  His  per- 
son ;  and  of  his  supreme  reverence  for  Christ  he  has 
left  a  most  vivid  impression.  For  all  phases  and  for 
all  interests  of  human  life,  Christ  with  him  has  absolute 
significance  and  worth.  So  central  is  Christ  in  his 
thinking,  so  central  according  to  his  apprehension  is 
Christ  in  the  entire  record  of  revelation,  so  central  in 
all  human  life,  life  finds  in  Him  so  completely  its  ex- 


232       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

pression  and  interpretation,  that  it  is  quite  the  necessity 
that  all  the  experiences  of  humanity  shall  somehow  fall 
into  relation  with  him.  A  passage  to  which  the  reader 
is  referred  in  the  sermon  entitled  "  The  Conqueror 
from  Edom,"  ^  one  of  his  most  interesting  and  forcible 
sermons,  will  illustrate  his  conception  of  the  universal- 
ity of  Christ  in  human  thought  and  life. 

Since  the  incarnation  is  in  his  thinking  the  central 
reality,  his  soteriology  is  conditioned  by  it.  The  atone- 
ment, therefore,  must  be  conceived  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  incarnation.  It  is  not,  therefore,  a  transac- 
tion between  a  Christ  and  a  God  who  stand  outside  of 
humanity,  but  who  are  revealed  in  and  are  identified 
with  humanity,  and  the  efficaciousness  of  the  atone- 
ment is  not  in  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  but  in  the  obe- 
dience of  His  holy  will.  The  reconciliation  of  God  and 
man  is  not  a  forensic  transaction  dealing  with  ideal  rela- 
tions, but  an  actual  participation  of  man  in  the  righteous- 
ness of  God,  a  view  with  which  the  church  has  become 
familiar,  but  which,  in  his  early  years,  as  advocated  by 
Bushnell  and  Robertson,  was  strange  and  unwelcome. 

The  church  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  he  did  not,  at  least 
in  the  pulpit,  criticise  or  deny,  nor  yet  did  he  defend  it 
in  its  formulated  aspect  as  an  article  of  theological 
belief.  He  always  got  back  to  the  vital  principle  that 
is  bedded  in  the  doctrine,  and  that  has  available  worth 
for  the  Christian  life.  He  was  accustomed  to  find  in  it 
an  expression  of  the  vast  wealth  and  variety  and  of  the 
inexhaustible  fulness  of  the  divine  nature.  And  as 
thus  presented  it  became  in  his  hands  immeasurably 
attractive. 

1  Vol.  I,  p.  40. 


THE   HOPE-BEARING   MESSAGE  233 

Kinship  of  nature  between  man  and  God  means  that 
man  is  the  child  of  God.  The  New  Testament  repre- 
sentation that  man  becomes  the  child  of  God  by  identi- 
fication with  Christ  is  based  upon  the  already  existing 
fact  that  he  is  such  by  nature.  If  he  were  not  God's 
child  by  nature,  he  could  never  become  His  child  by 
grace.  Christianity  does  not  create,  but  only  declares, 
the  fact,  and  furnishes  the  requisite  provision  for  its 
realization.  In  coming  to  Christ  we  come  to  ourselves, 
as  in  coming  to  us,  Christ  **  came  to  his  own."  Sin  on 
its  negative  side  is  a  failure  to  realize  one's  sonship  with 
God ;  on  its  positive  side,  it  is  refusal  to  accept  and 
actualize  the  fact.  The  terms  in  which  he  characterizes 
sin  are  in  general  not  theological  or  ecclesiastical,  nor  are 
they  always  in  line  with  BibUcal  representations  of  it ; 
but  they  suggest  phases  of  it  that  are  profoundly  real- 
istic and  impressive,  and  set  the  dark  reality  in  a  new 
aspect.  Sin  as  a  delusive  self -estimate ;  sin  as  folly  in 
refusing  to  be  what  one  was  made  to  be ;  sin  as  a  mean- 
ness in  choosing  a  lower  life  than  God  meant  for  one ; 
sin  as  a  wrong  done  the  soul  and  fellow-men  and  God, 
and  hence  guilt,  —  all  this  is  most  vividly  set  before  men  ; 
and  his  Lenten  discourses,  in  which  he  deals  with  the 
darkness  and  degradation  of  sin,  are  among  his  most 
searching  and  impressive  discourses.  With  him  it  is 
not  so  much  the  sovereignty  of  God  as  His  fatherhood, 
and  not  so  much  the  servantship,  as  the  sonship  of  man 
that  gives  significance  to  the  dark  reality  of  sin.  Re- 
generation, conversion,  sanctification,  are  the  beginning 
and  the  completion  of  the  process  by  which  one  comes 
to  the  recognition  of  one's  self  as  a  child  of  God,  and 
lives  agreeably  to  the  fact. 


234      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

The  terms  in  which  he  describes  the  church  also  are 
not  theological  or  ecclesiastical.  It  is  conceived  from 
the  humanistic  point  of  view.  The  church  is  idealized 
humanity.  It  is  God's  thought  of  redeemed  humanity, 
in  process  of  actualization.  It  is  what  man  as  man  was 
meant  and  made  to  be,  and  is  to  become.  The  empirical 
or  historic  church  does  not,  as  in  the  language  of  theol- 
ogy, consist  of  the  elect,  or  of  the  regenerate,  or  of  the 
baptized,  but  of  those  who  have  come  to  the  recognition 
of  the  true  meaning  of  their  humanity,  of  those  who  rec- 
ognize and  accept  the  ideal  of  their  manhood,  and  are 
trying  to  live  out  their  human  lives  as  the  true  children 
of  God.  Baptism  is  the  symbol  and  the  pledge  of  the 
restoration  of,  and  the  consecration  and  the  introduction 
to,  a  true  manhood.  The  Supper  is  the  symbol  and  the 
pledge  of  the  real  fellowship  of  the  true  children  of  God. 

His  view  of  the  great  future  was  full  of  hope  and  joy. 
How  otherwise  could  it  be,  with  his  lofty  ideaHsm,  that 
refused  to  find  the  key  to  the  mysterious  processes  of 
the  moral  universe  outside  the  fatherly  grace  of  God } 
He  believed  in  and  he  lived  in  the  kingdom  of  redemp- 
tion. The  kingdom  of  this  world  had  vanished,  as  it 
were,  from  his  prophetic  vision,  and  he  saw  only  the 
kingdom  of  God.  The  God  who  is  the  source  of  all 
things,  and  who  is  in  all  things,  is  pushing  all  things 
onward  to  the  far-off  goal  of  righteousness  and  peace 
and  joy.  This  optimistic  cheerfulness  and  hopefulness 
colored  all  his  estimates  of  the  empirical  world.  He 
refused  to  linger  with  the  dark  side  of  life,  counting 
it  a  sort  of  immorality  to  do  so.  He  looked  beyond 
the  perversions  and  corruptions  of  men,  and  beheld 
them  as  in  process  of  rectification,  in  the  divine  order 


THE   HOPE-BEARING  MESSAGE  235 

of  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  was  surely  impossible  that 
so  severely  ethical  a  mind  as  his  should  have  accepted 
or  tolerated  the  brutality  of  modern  favored  nations  in 
their  exploitation  of  inferior  races  for  the  purposes  of 
commercial  and  political  supremacy.  One  cannot 
imagine  him  as  sanctioning  the  iniquitous  imperialism 
that  boasts  of  the  "  manifest  destiny "  to  supremacy 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  that  baptizes  slaughter  and 
ravage  in  the  name  of  philanthropy,  and  calls  it  the 
work  of  "benevolent  assimilation."  But  he  believed 
that  "  good  will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill,"  even  though  it 
be  through  the  wrath  and  brutality  of  man,  and  that  the 
God  of  vengeance  is  still  the  strong,  conquering  God 
of  grace.  He  could  not  have  failed  to  see  that  the 
political  party  with  which  he  had  been  allied  in  the 
early  years  of  his  ministry  had  already,  before  the  close 
of  that  ministry,  apostatized  from  its  noble  ideals  and 
traditions,  and  his  keen  ethical  sense  must  have  been 
outraged  by  the  hypocrisy,  and  the  general  moral  de- 
generacy of  many  of  its  leaders ;  but  he  never  broke 
with  it,  and  did  not  ally  himself  with  the  movement  of 
political  independence  that  sought  reform.  He  believed 
in  the  good  which  he  thought  still  remained,  and  looked 
for  reform  from  within.  He  was  always  looking  ahead 
for  the  good  that  is  to  be.  The  future  somehow  has  in 
store  things  that  will  be  different,  and  things  that  will 
be  better  than  the  things  of  the  past.  He  lived  as 
upon  the  verge  of  brighter  days  and  of  larger  glories 
of  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  this  transcendent  opti-  ^ 
mism  he  transferred  to  the  mysterious  future.  He  was 
committed  to  no  dogma  of  the  future  life,  and  was  wise 
and  most  serious  in  all  his  discussions  of  eschatological 


236   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

questions,  but  he  cherished  the  hope,  and  indeed  lived 
in  the  joy  of  it,  that  redemption  will  reach  to  the 
ultimate  limits  of  the  human  race,  that  God  will  not 
be  baffled  in  his  purpose  of  universal  grace,  that  He 
will  "make  his  pile  complete,"  and  that  all  men  will 
come  to  ultimate  righteousness  and  blessedness. 

These  are  some,  only  a  few,  of  the  items  of  a  message 
of  great  power  and  beneficence.  They  are  in  substance 
not  new,  but  they  are  made  new  by  the  genius  of  the 
preacher,  and  speak  with  new  persuasiveness  from  his 
lips.  They  may  be  of  no  great  scientific  value  for  the 
reflective  life  of  the  church.  But  they  are  very  simple 
and  they  are  fundamental ;  and  they  are  transcendently 
precious  to  all  such  as  need  in  special  the  voice  of  hope, 
as  they  struggle  to  live  out  their  human  lives  in  the  midst 
of  the  contradictions  and  confusions  and  bewilderments 
and  burdens  of  the  world ;  and  they  are  presented 
with  a  rhetorical  forcefulness  and  attractiveness,  with 
a  wealth  of  suggestiveness,  with  an  infinite  variety  of 
forms  of  representation,  and  with  a  strength  of  personal 
incentive,  that  is  well-nigh  matchless  in  the  pulpit  of 
his  age. 

IV 

THE   ILLUSTRATIVE   HOMILETIC   METHOD 

In  his  "  Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  perhaps  the  most 
valuable  of  all  recent  contributions  to  homiletic  litera- 
ture, Bishop  Brooks  has  left  on  record  his  conception 
of  the  nature,  the  function,  and  the  method  of  the  ser- 
mon. In  theory  as  in  practice  the  sermon  is  for  him 
only  an  instrument,  and  as  such  it  must  accompHsh  two 


THE  ILLUSTRATIVE   HOMILETIC  METHOD      237 

things  :  it  must  interpret  and  it  must  persuade  ;  it  must 
edify  and  it  must  inspire.  A  characteristic  peculiarity, 
therefore,  of  his  method  is  the  interplay  of  the  exposi- 
tory and  the  persuasive  elements  in  his  preaching.  The 
first  impression  upon  the  hearer  or  reader  will  perhaps 
be  that  the  emotional  and  impressional,  or  the  rhetorical, 
element  predominates.  But  a  closer  inspection  shows 
that  after  all  the  basis  of  his  preaching  is  didactic. 

In  determining  the  class  to  which  any  preacher  be- 
longs we  must  take  into  consideration  the  type  of  reli- 
gious truth  with  which  he  deals,  and  the  way  in  which 
he  handles  it.  As  regards  the  substance  of  Bishop 
Brooks's  preaching  we  readily  note  two  things  :  the  first 
is  that  he  deals  with  a  distinctively  Christian  type 
of  truth,  and  presents  it  in  its  relation  to  our  entire 
life.  No  part  of  our  complex  nature,  mental,  physical, 
social,  as  well  as  emotional,  ethical,  and  spiritual,  is 
remote  from  his  touch.  He  did  not  preach  much  about 
Christ  in  the  sense  that  he  did  not  frequently  make  the 
person,  character,  or  life  of  Christ  a  definite  theme  of 
discussion.  But  all  his  preaching  has  a  distinctively 
Christological  centre.  His  preaching,  therefore,  is  not 
subjectively  rationalistic  in  its  character.  What  calls 
itself  "  natural  religion  "  has  no  place  in  it.  All  that  is 
truly  Christian  is  with  him  natural.  Christ  is  the  true 
interpreter  of  nature,  and  what  is  truly  natural  cannot 
be  far  remote  from  what  is  Christian.  But  he  deals 
with  Christian  truth  in  its  broad,  generic  principles. 
Isolated  truths  have  no  significance  for  him.  He  deals 
with  it  in  its  wide-reaching  relations  and  traces  it  in 
many  realms  of  reality  and  of  experience.  These  two 
qualities  in  his  preaching  fix  in  general  his  place  and 


238   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

class.  He  is  preeminently  an  interpreter  of  Christian 
truth.  The  didactic  preacher  deals  with  principles ; 
the  Christian  preacher  discusses  those  principles  from 
the  distinctively  Christian  point  of  view. 
C-  But  looking  a  httle  more  closely,  we  shall  see  the 
form  which  these  qualities  in  his  preaching  take  and 
the  school  of  didactic  preachers  to  which  he  belongs. 
His  teaching  is  not  prevailingly  BibHcal.  He  is  a  topi- 
cal preacher,  unHke  Robertson,  never  preaching  exposi- 
torily  and  rarely  textually.  Nor  is  he  a  doctrinal  preacher, 
for  with  the  formulated  doctrines  of  the  church  he  never 
deals.  Bishop  Brooks  did  not  belong  to  this  relic  of  a 
past  generation.  He  was  not  an  apologetic  or  polemical 
preacher.  Nor  is  his  method  argumentative.  For  ab- 
stract, formal  methods  of  proof  he  cares  not,  and  he 
quotes  no  authorities.  He  combats  no  one  and  spends 
no  time  in  contrasting  what  he  believes  with  what  other 
people  believe.  His  method  is  that  of  proclamation,  — 
the  affirmative,  declarative  method.  He  reasons  much, 
but  argues  little.  His  mental  movement  is  not  logical 
or  dialectical,  but  intuitional.  But  his  declarative  method 
has  often  the  force  of  argument,  and  more  than  the  per- 
suasiverress  of  argument,  for  he  appeals  to  the  incon- 
testible  facts  of  human  experience.  Nor  does  his  preach- 
ing take  the  historical  or  biographical  form.  Brooks 
has  nothing  of  Robertson's  analytic  skill  in  the  hand- 
ling of  historical  and  biographical  material.  He  illus- 
trates liberally  from  such  material,  but  the  sermon 
never  takes  the  historical  or  biographical  form. 

It  hardly  need  be  said  that  the  evangelistic  element 
!  is  not  prominent  in  his  preaching.  He  is  a  pastoral, 
\  not  an  evangelistic,  preacher.     That  he  deals  to  a  con- 


THE   ILLUSTRATIVE   HOMILETIC  METHOD      239 

siderable  extent  with  those  truths  that  are  adapted  to 
the  work  of  conviction  and  conversion  is  evident,  and 
that  his  preaching  left  a  strong  impression  upon  the 
feehngs  and  moral  convictions  is  equally  clear.  But  his 
method  of  presentation  is  better  adapted  to  the  produc- 
tion of  gradual  and  permanent  results  in  character  and 
life  rather  than  to  the  work  of  immediate  conquest. 

It  is  the  rhetorical  and  impressional  quality  of  his 
method  that  distinguishes  him  as  a  didactic  preacher. 
He  is  a  singularly  persuasive  interpreter  of  truth. 
There  were  more  distinctively  intellectual  preachers 
than  he.  Mozley  was  such,  Robertson  was  such,  and 
so  was  Bushnell.  But  neither  of  them  reached  his 
mark  in  vivacity  of  thought  and  attractiveness  of  diction. 
There  is  more  that  is  striking  in  his  preaching  than  in 
that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries.  Yet  his  thought  is 
not  the  less  substantial  that  it  is  put  in  a  rhetorically 
suggestive  manner.  He  affects  no  profundity,  but  he 
strikes  quick  and  often  deep  into  the  heart  of  things. 

Let  us  now  look  at  some  of  his  salient  qualities  as  an 
interpreter  and  advocate  of  the  truth.  In  no  way  can 
we  discover  so  readily  what  is  distinctive  in  any  preacher 
as  by  noting  his  didactic  methods,  or  the  methods  by 
which  he  gets  his  thought  before  his  hearers. 

Analytic  skill  is  prominent  in  Bishop  Brooks's  method. 
The  entire  sermon  is  a  process  of  analytic  discrimina- 
tion. It  generally  starts  with  an  analysis  of  the  text 
by  means  of  which  it  is  brought  into  relation  with  the 
theme.  If,  as  is  sometimes  the  case,  the  sermon  starts 
with  some  general  reflection  upon  a  particular  phase  of 
the  subject  which  is  already  in  the  mind  of  the  preacher, 
it  is  always  harmonized  with  the  text  by  some  process 


240      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

of  analysis,  and  thus  the  proper  point  of  departure  from 
the  text  is  secured.  The  discussion  is  an  analytic  process 
by  which  the  inner  elements  and  relations  of  the  subject 
are  made  apparent.  Not  infrequently  the  entire  de- 
velopment consists  in  an  analysis  of  those  traits  and 
those  motives  by  which  human  character  is  disclosed. 
In  such  analysis  but  few  preachers  excelled  him.  His 
humanistic  interests  and  his  study  of  human  character 
and  life  are  constantly  manifest.  But  his  preaching  is 
constructive  as  well  as  analytic,  and  the  organizing  and 
vitalizing  quality  of  his  mind  is  readily  apparent.  Noth- 
ing is  left  unrelated  and  in  fragments.  The  process  of 
dissection  is  tributary  to  the  work  of  unification.  He 
takes  hold  of  a  principle  and  carries  it  strongly  and 
steadily  through,  so  that  it  appears  pervasively  in  every 
part  of  the  sermon.  About  the  central  thought  the 
sermon  is  wrought  into  a  vital  unity,  and  analysis  is 
only  tributary  to  the  process  of  synthesis.  The  omni- 
presence of  the  theme  secures  proper  significance  for  all 
the  processes  of  analysis. 

His  favorite  expository  method  is  analogy.  The 
subject  of  the  sermon  is  generally  secured  from  the  text 
by  some  analogical  process,  and  it  is  this  analogy  that 
furnishes  the  starting-point.  It  is  often  a  remote  and 
poetically  suggestive  analogy,  and  therefore  quickens 
the  imagination  and  stimulates  curiosity.  But  although 
it  is  a  metaphorical  analogy  and  not  adapted  to  the 
uses  of  argument,  it  is  still  didactic  analogy.  It  throws 
light  upon  the  truth  In  hand.  It  suggests  its  reasonable- 
ness, and  it  becomes  a  solid  basis  for  discussion.  By 
the  aim  which  he  has  in  view  and  by  the  virile  method 
of  his  discussion,  his  poetic  analogies  are  taken  out  of 


THE   ILLUSTRATIVE   HOMILETIC   METHOD      241 

the  realm  of  fancifulness.  They  at  once  present  the 
truth  in  a  clearer  light  and  render  it  the  more  attractive. 
Closely  connected  with  the  analogical  basis  of  the 
sermon,  and  as  in  fact  a  part  of  it,  is  the  general  view  of 
the  subject  that  is  presented.  As  already  indicated,  he 
always  deals  with  a  general  principle.  He  gets  away 
as  rapidly  as  possible  from  what  is  specific  and  historic 
in  his  text  into  some  general  truth  that  is  somehow 
suggested  by  it,  and  that  has  a  common  family  relation 
with  it.  The  strongly  didactic  character  of  the  sermon 
appears  to  best  advantage  here.  It  passes  from  what  is 
individual  and  local  and  provincial  into  what  is  univer- 
sal. It  deals  with  what  has  fundamental  and  generic 
validity.  The  general  principle  makes  the  individual 
and  particular  instance  clearer  and  more  real,  and  what 
is  individual  and  local  finds  new  significance  and  value 
in  what  reaches  so  widely  beyond  it.  This  generalizing 
of  the  thought  excites  curiosity  at  the  outset.  The 
juxtaposition  of  somewhat  remotely  related  thoughts, 
yet  not  so  remotely  related  as  to  seem  far-fetched  and 
grotesque,  stimulates  interest  and  puts  the  mind  upon  a 
search.  The  hearer  listens  with  eager  attention  because 
he  will  have  the  matter  cleared  up.  If  it  is  well  cleared 
up,  i.e.  if  the  analogy  is  successfully  carried  through  the 
different  phases  or  spheres  of  its  application,  there  is  a 
resulting  intellectual  satisfaction  and  a  corresponding 
strength  of  emotional  and  ethical  impression.  A  certain 
weight  and  impressiveness  is  given  to  any  truth  by 
being  brought  under  a  general  law  or  principle.  In 
the  light  of  the  general  principle,  we  see  new  light  in 
what  is  specific.  The  individual  fact  or  truth  stands, 
not  in  its  own  light  alone,  but  in  the  light  of  the  broader 


242   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

principle  that  covers  it.  There  is  always  a  certain  lack 
of  weight  and  impressiveness  in  the  discussion  of  any 
truth  unrelated  to  the  broader  truth  that  includes  it. 
It  is  this  grasp  of  broad  principles  that  accounts  for 
Phillips  Brooks's  success  in  making  the  claims  of  reli- 
gion seem  rational  and  natural  and  real.  It  is  at  once 
a  didactic  and  a  persuasive  method. 

But  the  sermon  does  not  linger  and  is  not  lost  in 
what  is  general.  The  process  of  the  discussion  is  always 
from  the  general  to  the  particular,  from  the  generic  to 
the  specific.  If  the  sermon  were  to  Hnger  in  the  realm 
of  the  generic,  it  might  indeed  be  successful  teaching, 
and  the  preacher  might  show  that  he  has  a  philosophi- 
cal grasp  of  his  subject,  but  he  would  fail  as  a  preacher. 
For  it  is  the  function  of  the  preacher  to  interpret  and 
enforce  what  is  specific  by  relating  it  to  what  lies  back 
of  it.  It  is  the  blending  of  the  generic  and  specific  that 
results  in  getting  the  whole  subject  clearly  and  impres- 
sively before  the  hearer.  The  particular  case,  as  belong- 
ing to  the  realm  of  experience  or  observation,  brings 
out  more  clearly  and  forcibly  the  general  principle,  and 
the  general  principle  makes  the  particular  case  the  more 
impressive,  as  showing  that  it  falls  under  a  comprehen- 
sive law.  Here,  too,  we  recognize  the  interplay  of  the 
didactic  and  persuasive  elements  in  his  preaching. 

The  deduced  or  inferential  thought  is  another  factor 
in  his  didactic  method.  The  deductions  are  not  formal ; 
the  preacher's  mind  moves  with  great  rapidity  from 
premise  to  conclusion,  from  principle  to  inference  or 
application.  It  is  done  in  an  altogether  informal,  viva- 
cious manner,  and,  in  a  way,  reminds  us  of  Dr.  Thomas 
Guthrie.     Some  one  remarked  to  Sir  William  Hamilton 


THE   ILLUSTRATIVE   HOMILETIC   METHOD      243 

that  Guthrie's  preaching  was  defective  in  logical  qual- 
ity, and  he  answered,  "  It  is  the  very  best  sort  of  logic ; 
there  is  but  a  step  between  the  premise  and  conclusion." 
All  this  has  a  certain  argumentative  force,  without  be- 
ing in  argumentative  form.  Brooks  is  constantly  mak- 
ing general  statements  from  which  he  runs  rapidly  out 
into  inferences.  Some  of  these  deductions  are  of  the 
broad,  general  sort.  They  always  come  in  rhetorical, 
never  in  logical,  form.  They  are  just  such  inferences 
as  we  are  always  in  a  quiet,  unconscious  way  making. 
We  always  carry  the  force  of  the  primary  thought  into 
what  comes  from  it.  A  deduction  has  the  weight  of 
what  is  behind  it.  This  is  the  strength  of  the  syllogism. 
Many  of  our  preachers'  deductions  are  popular,  incom- 
plete syllogisms.  Take  the  following  examples  from  the 
sermon  that  may  be  entitled  "  Spotted  Lives,"  ^  *'  When 
we  remember  what  a  source  of  strength  the  purest  repu- 
tations in  the  world  have  always  been,  what  a  stimulus 
and  help,  then  we  have  some  idea  of  what  the  world 
loses  in  the  fact  that  almost  every  reputation  becomes 
so  blurred  and  spotted  that  it  is  wholly  unfit  to  be  used 
as  a  light  or  a  pattern  before  the  man  is  old  enough  to 
give  it  any  positive  character  or  force."  That  is,  we 
infer  the  world's  loss  from  early  spotted  reputations  by 
reminding  ourselves  of  the  opposite,  i.e.  the  strength 
that  is  contributed  to  the  world  by  unspotted  reputation. 
From  the  value  of  good  reputations  we  infer  the  world's 
loss  from  bad  reputations.  The  sermons  are  crowded 
with  these  inferential  thoughts.  He  deals  a  good  deal 
in  spurious  inferences,  directing  attention  to  the  way 
men  of  the  world  think  and  talk  about  the  affairs  of 
1  Vol.  I,  p.  176. 


244      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

life.  Take  this  passage  in  the  same  sermon :  ^  "  You 
talk  about  the  corruption  of  political  life,  that  seems  to 
have  infected  the  safest  characters,  and  the  answer  is : 
*  Oh,  there  is  nothing  strange  about  it ;  no  man  can  go 
through  that  trial  and  not  fall.  No  man  can  live  years 
in  Washington  and  be  wholly  pure.' "  Here  is  a  syllo- 
gism, (i)  The  safest,  i.e.  the  strongest  and  purest, 
characters  are  least  Ukely  to  fall ;  (2)  but  the  corrup- 
tions of  political  life  infect  even  these  safest  characters ; 
(3)  consequently  no  man  can  go  through  the  trial  and 
not  fall.  No  one  can  live  a  pure  life  in  Washington. 
That  is,  in  the  opinion  ol  a  certain  class  of  men  political 
corruption  is  inevitable.  This  is  an  example  of  that 
"  fatalistic  habit  of  mind  "  which  he  so  strenuously  an- 
tagonized. Note  the  following i^  (i)  Social  life  can- 
not be  elevated  and  ennobled ;  (2)  but  one  must  go  into 
social  life ;  (3)  consequently,  he  who  goes  will  be  con- 
taminated. That  is,  we  are  not  to  blame  for  what  we 
cannot  escape ;  no  man  can  go  into  the  world  and  es- 
cape its  spots,  therefore  we  are  not  to  blame  because 
we  are  spotted. 

Perhaps  his  most  obvious,  most  common,  and  most 
effective  method  of  addressing  the  intelligence  and  con- 
victions of  men  is  the  appeal  to  experience.  It  is  this 
appeal  that  contributes  clearness  and  force  to  his  preach- 
ing. Sometimes  he  may  assume  that  what  is  exceptional 
in  experience  is  common.  He  not  infrequently  assumes 
that  a  high  grade  of  experience  belongs  to  ordinary  men. 
In  this  his  idealistic  and  optimistic  tendencies  remind  us 
of  Schleiermacher,  but  on  the  whole  he  succeeds  in  hit- 
ting upon  what  most  men  recognize  as  something,  or  like 
1  Vol.  I,  p.  177.  2  /^^v.,  p.  178. 


THE  ILLUSTRATIVE  HOMILETIC   METHOD      245 

unto  something,  they  themselves  have  thought  or  felt  or 
observed  or  done.  At  any  rate,  this  is  the  appeal,  the 
appeal  to  what  men  know,  or  should  know,  the  appeal 
to  life.  The  personal  form  of  appeal  is  common,  and  it 
comes  largely  in  the  interrogative  form.  It  is  so  obvious 
in  all  his  sermons  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  linger  with  it. 
It  is  apparently  the  leading  aim  of  his  preaching  to  make 
men's  sense  of  the  significance  and  value  of  existence 
more  real  and  more  intense,  so  that  they  may  be  Hfted 
into  the  height  of  more  noble  feeling  and  be  impelled 
to  more  practically  useful  living.  And  in  doing  this  he 
constantly  appeals  to  what  is  purest,  noblest,  ideally 
best  in  men.  Bushnell  will  make  the  truth  more  real,  so 
shall  life  become  more  real.  To  clear  the  truth  from 
the  unreality  with  which  it  has  become  invested  is  his 
task.  Brooks  will  make  men's  lives  more  real,  more 
cheerful  and  useful,  hence  his  immediate  appeal  to  life. 
Thus  shall  the  truth  become  more  real.  Bushnell  inter- 
prets life  in  the  light  of  truth.  Brooks  interprets  truth 
in  the  light  of  Hfe,  and  here  largely  lies  his  convincing 
and  persuasive  power. 

In  this  connection  his  literary  style  may  well  be  con- 
sidered. It  might  be  shown  by  careful  analysis  that  the 
literary  quality  is  admirably  adapted  to  the  didactic  in- 
terest of  the  sermon.  But  perhaps  it  is  more  obviously 
tributary  to  the  persuasive  and  impressional  interest. 
His  vocabulary  is  that  of  a  man  whose  thought  moves 
in  the  realm  of  concrete  reality,  of  a  man  who  has  dealt 
with  life  rather  than  with  abstractions.  There  is  a 
marked  anthropological  suggestiveness  about  it.  It  is 
the  diction  of  a  man  who  has  studied  human  nature  and 
human  life.     Three  qualities  are  prominent  in  his  liter- 


y 


246      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ary  style.  Naturalness  is  one.  It  is  the  naturalness  of 
a  man  whose  mind  is  fertile  and  full,  who  utters  himself 
with  the  simplicity  of  intellectual  abundance  and  with 
the  vivacity  of  natural  feeling,  who  likes  the  colloquial 
forms,  and  who  has  the  freedom  of  a  large  vocabulary. 
Clearness  is  another  quality.  It  is  the  clearness  of  a 
man  whose  thought  is  perspicacious,  because  it  deals  so 
largely  with  the  life  of  men,  with  what  is  familiar  to 
them  in  experience.  What  is  relatively  remote  from 
them  in  thought  is  brought  near  to  them  by  being 
associated  with  what  they  constantly  see  or  feel.  It  is 
the  perspicacity  and  the  perspicuity  of  the  illustrative 
preacher.  The  aphoristic  form  of  the  sentence  be- 
comes tributary  to  this  quality,  likewise  its  concreteness. 
The  contrasted  thought,  and  still  further  the  expanded 
thought,  is  another  element.  Iteration  is  a  quality  of 
style  tributary  at  once  to  clearness  and  impressiveness. 
The  following  sentences  remind  us  of  the  rushing  style 
of  Newman :  **  I  have  been  powerful ;  I  have  turned 
the  currents,  and  made  the  world  different ;  I  have  been 
useful ;  I  have  made  the  world  better  ;  I  have  been  hon- 
ored ;  I  have  made  men  regard  and  love  me."  ^  The 
periodic  sentence  is  not  common.  The  loose  sentence 
prevails,  and  the  blending  of  the  two,  by  breaking  up 
and  changing  the  form  of  the  sentence,  becomes  tribu- 
tary to  clearness.  The  occasional  long,  periodic  sen- 
tence, by  its  cumulation  and  climax,  is  not  without  its 
contribution  to  perspicuity.  The  colloquial  style  is 
clear  because  famiHar;  and  the  connectives  that  bind 
the  clauses  together  are  tributary  to  the  same  result, 
because  they  keep  the  continuity  of  thought. 

1  "  Keeping  the  Faith,"  Vol.  I,  p.  58. 


THE   ILLUSTRATIVE  HOMILETIC  METHOD      247 

But  force  is,  perhaps,  the  most  striking  quality. 
Vivacity  is  an  element  of  force,  and  the  elements  of 
vivacity  are  many.  Variety  in  the  architecture  of  the 
sentence  is  one.  The  use  of  the  historic  present  is  an- 
other and  is  very  common.  The  direct  personal  address 
is  another.  The  rhetorical  interrogative,  the  inversion 
of  the  sentences,  the  figurative  vocabulary  —  all  these 
are  elements  of  force.  The  vocabulary  is  that  of  a  man 
who  has  the  most  vigorous  conceptions  of  whatever  his 
mind  touches,  a  vigor  that  seems  to  spring  from  his  own 
vivid  consciousness  of  personal  force,  who,  in  the  fulness 
of  his  own  conscious  life,  attributes  life  to  all  things, 
who  looks  at  all  things  as  in  vital,  organic  relations,  and 
who  inclines  to  personify  everything.  It  is  this  that 
imparts  the  lively,  pictorial  quality  to  his  style.  Every- 
thing is  in  movement :  "  Life  blooms,"  "  Darkness  rolls 
on  toward  the  light."  His  figurative  diction  is  primarily 
for  the  purpose  of  illustrating  his  thought,  not  merely 
for  emotional  or  aesthetic  effects.  Therefore  he  rarely 
uses  the  figures  of  exaggeration  that  appeal  to  the  emo- 
tions. His  figures  fall  easily  and  naturally  into  line  with 
his  thought,  and  are  a  product  at  once  of  its  fulness 
and  of  its  imaginative  vivacity.  He  never  goes  out  of 
his  way  for  imagery  that  will  impress  us  with  its  novelty. 
His  most  remote  and  subtle  thoughts  seek  simple,  con- 
crete expression.  Mental  acts  he  hkes  to  represent  in 
the  language  of  physical  movement,  as  if  in  process  be- 
fore our  eyes.  Personification  is,  perhaps,  his  most 
striking  figure.  He  projects  the  life  of  his  own  per- 
sonality outward  upon  everything,  and  the  objects  of 
his  thoughts  live  like  personal  beings  before  us.  One 
fancies  that  this  hypostatizing  habit,  a  product  of  his 


248       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

own  imaginative  genius,  was   richly  cultivated   by  the 
church  Fathers. 

From  the  whole,  then,  we  may  see  that  in  theory,  as  in 
practice,  the  sermon  for  him  as  an  end  to  itself,  or  as  a 
work  of  art,  has  but  little  value.  It  must  have  a  pre- 
vailingly ethical  rather  than  artistic  significance.  The 
chief  question  is  its  fitness  to  its  object.  If  the  man  is 
enriched,  the  sermon  will  fairly  well  take  care  of  itself. 
He  is  not  an  advocate  of  lawless  homiletics,  and  he  was 
careful  and  methodical  in  his  own  preparation.  Clear- 
ness and  definiteness  of  structural  outline  he  advocated 
and  fairly  well  realized  in  his  own  preaching.  Yet  the 
sermon  is  of  supreme  value  only  for  what  it  can  accom- 
plish ;  and  a  strong  didactic  and  ethical  impulse  to  com- 
municate the  truth  with  reference  to  the  practical  interests 
of  men's  lives  is  the  basis  of  his,  as  it  must  be  of  all 
first-class,  pulpit  talent.  This  regnant  purpose,  inspired 
by  a  great  human  sympathy  and  a  great  longing  to  help 
men  in  the  struggle  of  life,  holding  in  line  all  his  imagi- 
native activity  and  concentrating  all  his  mental  fulness 
and  productiveness  upon  one  point,  left  its  mark  upon 
his  rushing,  wealthy,  vital,  multiform,  manly,  and  often 
careless,  product,  and  did  its  work.  The  very  affluence 
of  the  sermon  attests  its  instrumental  significance.  It 
is  opulent  in  material  and  never  runs  dry.  It  is  an  over- 
flow plump  up  to  the  end.  It  seems  to  say  itself.  The 
intellectual  and  emotional  vitality  of  the  preacher  is 
manifest  at  every  turn,  yet  it  is  the  product  of  great 
diligence  and  of  most  conscientious  effort.  He  keeps 
himself  full  and  flowing,  and  his  productiveness  is  due 
to  most  painstaking  literary  and  homiletic  training.  But 
something  that  moves  his  whole  soul  he  will  always  have 


THE   ILLUSTRATIVE   HOMILETIC   METHOD      249 

to  say,  and  then  it  will  say  itself  in  a  simple,  straight, 
natural  way.  He  apparently  selects  his  theme  before 
his  text,  at  least  not  infrequently,  and  in  fact  advocates 
this  as  being  likely  to  yield  for  the  preacher  a  freer  and 
wider  range.  In  his  own  case  it  doubtless  proved  tribu- 
tary to  a  larger  productiveness  and  effectiveness ;  but  it 
is  not  a  principle  that  is  universally  valid,  for  many  a 
man's  productiveness  and  effectiveness  are  dependent 
on  limitation  rather  than  on  range.  The  practical  qual- 
ity of  the  sermon  also,  its  eminent  helpfulness,  bears 
witness  to  its  instrumental  significance.  One  cannot 
imagine  him  as  engaged  in  the  work  of  sermon  prepara- 
tion without  a  strong  and  definite  purpose  to  help  as 
many  of  his  fellow-men  in  the  struggle  of  life  as  he 
may  be  able  to  reach.  Of  all  the  objects  at  which  the 
sermon  may  well  aim,  he  lays  most  stress,  and  the  primary 
stress,  upon  the  immediate  needs  of  the  congregation. 

As  illustrating  his  conception  of  the  sermon  as  an 
instrument,  its  unconventional  and  unstereotyped  form 
is  also  in  evidence.  Because  it  is  fountain-full  and  con- 
scious of  its  object,  it  develops  itself  freely  and  naturally 
and  therefore  variously.  He  has  a  certain  general  regu- 
lative method  for  handling  his  subject,  and  it  bears  his 
own  mark.  We  have  an  explanatory  textual  introduc- 
tion or  general  reflections  on  the  theme  already  in  mind, 
connected  with  this  textual  matter,  thus  setting  the  text 
in  relation  with  the  theme ;  then  an  analogy  caught  from 
the  text  that  furnishes  a  basis  for  the  discussion.  This 
secures  a  generalized  thought  which  is  the  theme.  The 
principle  contained  in  this  generalized  thought  is  then 
taken  out  into  various  realms  of  experience  and  is  par- 
ticularized.    Everywhere  in  the  discussion  we  have  con- 


250       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

Crete  illustration,  and  at  the  close  the  truth  discussed  is 
brought  into  immediate  relation  with  the  personal  Christ, 
who  in  some  way  actualizes  the  truth  in  hand  and  fur- 
nishes the  requisite  incentive  for  its  realization  by  the 
hearer ;  and  the  note  of  cheer  and  hope  rings  clear  at  the 
end.  This  in  general  is  his  method.  But  the  flow  of 
the  individual  sermon  is  free,  and  he  has  no  stereotyped 
form.  He  advocates  unity  in  the  various  elements  of 
the  sermon  and  acts  upon  it.  But  there  is  no  formal 
combination.  The  elements  flow  into  each  other,  are 
freely  and  naturally  blended,  and  there  is  no  sermon 
building,  but  a  growth  ;  and  the  growth  is  so  natural  that 
no  two  sermons  are  altogether  alike  in  method.  Even 
the  somewhat  negligent  movement  of  the  sermon  indi- 
cates that  the  form  is  always  wholly  subordinate  to  the 
substance  and  aim.  This  free  handling  not  infrequently 
results  in  a  certain  disharmony.  Sometimes  it  is  a  struc- 
tural or  a  logical,  and  sometimes  it  is  a  literary  or  rhe- 
torical, neghgence.  Sometimes  he  understates  his  theme 
or  overstates  it.  Sometimes  he  fails  to  discuss  what  it 
contains  and  should  discuss,  or  he  discusses  what  it  does 
not  contain  or  what  is  too  remotely  related  to  it,  and  he 
cares  too  little  for  climax  in  the  order  of  his  thought. 
Yet  these  defects  from  the  point  of  view  of  technique  are 
all  overborne  by  the  vitality  and  wealth  of  the  sermon. 
They  are  logical  defects  that  do  not  seriously  limit  the 
rhetorical  effectiveness  of  the  product,  or  they  are  lit- 
erary or  rhetorical  defects  that  do  not  compromise  its 
practical  effectiveness.  The  not  infrequent  negligence 
in  diction  suggests  that  the  preacher  is  supremely  intent 
upon  what  he  says,  and  the  manner  of  saying  it  is  a 
minor  consideration,  and  the  very  neghgence  may  bring 


Jll^^^ 


THE   ILLUSTRATIVE   HOMILETIC  METHOD      25 1 


him  a  little  nearer  the  average  hearer.  Naturalness, 
clearness,  and  vivacity  of  style  are  not  always  a  pledge 
of  exactness.  The  style  of  Bishop  Brooks  is  too  rapid, 
colloquial,  and  concrete  for  technical  exactness.  The 
popular  preacher  need  not  be  a  very  exact  preacher. 
Yet  it  must  be  acknowledged  that,  illustratively  and  sug- 
gestively, our  preacher  succeeds  in  saying  what  he  means 
to  say  and  conveys  his  meaning  with  accuracy  of  result, 
even  when  his  terms  fail  to  stand  the  critical  tests.  It 
is  an  unconventional  type  of  diction,  colloquial,  free,  and 
familiar,  nothing  pedantic,  stiff,  or  stilted,  often  homely 
and  always  realistic ;  it  is  honest,  idiomatic  English,  and 
the  Anglo-Saxon  element  is  abundant.  There  are  some- 
times awkward  phrases,  bad  combinations  in  syntax,  and 
sentences  that  are  needlessly  pleonastic  and  redundant. 
There  are  not  wanting  those  whom  he  fails  greatly  to 
interest  because  they  regard  him  as  **  wordy."  Yet  a 
more  careful  inspection  of  his  thought  justifies  the  exu- 
berance of  his  style,  and  again  it  must  be  said  that  the 
sermon  overrides  all  defects,  and  they  are  lost  in  its 
superabundant  life  and  force.  And  any  man  who  would 
know  better  what  it  is  to  be  a  helpful,  pastoral  preacher, 
a  real  preacher,  full,  simple,  earnest,  unconventional, 
the  preacher  of  an  imaginative,  suggestive,  and  ethical 
mind,  who  cares  chiefly  to  make  the  truth  effective,  who 
is  bent  upon  getting  it  at  work  in  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  men,  who  would  fuse  and  fire  the  truth  with  the  ener- 
gies of  a  manly  human  soul,  may  well  give  himself  with 
dihgence  to  Phillips  Brooks. 


CHAPTER  VI 
JOHN  HENRY   NEWMAN 

I 

THE  ANGLICAN  MOVEMENT 

It  may,  on  the  face  of  it,  seem  an  anachronism  to 
undertake  to  find  a  place  among  representative  modern 
preachers  for  a  reactionist  like  John  Henry  Newman. 
He  was  an  ecclesiastic  who  looked  upon  human  life 
wholly  from  the  restricted  churchly  point  of  view,  an 
ascetic  in  his  personal  habits,  and  a  celibate  by  con- 
scious calling  ;  a  dogmatist,  who  was  fanatically  devoted 
to  tradition,  authority,  and  the  dogmatic  method,  and 
wh.0,  aside  from  his  literary  impulses,  seemed  to  be 
wholly  bereft  of  any  share  in  the  modern  humanistic 
spirit.  But  this,  after  all,  is  a  superficial  estimate.  The 
movement  he  represents  has  a  place  among  the  impor- 
tant developments  of  modern  life.  Many  of  the  pro- 
ductive influences  that  were  at  work  during  that  period 
lie  behind  the  Oxford  movement,  were  shared  by  New- 
man and  his  chief  associates,  and  his  career  can  be 
understood  only  in  connection  with  them.  Against 
many  of  these  influences,  poHtical,  theological,  and 
ecclesiastical,  as  they  appeared  in  the  liberal  school, 
he  was  strongly,  even  violently,  reactionary.  And  it  is 
this  reactionary,  or  negative,  aspect  that  monopoHzes 
superficial  attention.     But  the  Oxford  movement  has  a 

252 


THE   ANGLICAN   MOVEMENT  253 

positive  as  well  as  negative  aspect,  and  it  is  this  that 
furnishes  the  only  adequate  explanation  of  Newman's 
singular  but  very  interesting  career.  It  is  necessary, 
therefore,  at  the  outset  to  look  at  what  lies  behind  this 
movement  and  at  its  relation  to  Newman's  Hfe. 

In  its  primary  intent  the  Anglican  movement  was  a 
positively  religious  movement.  Whatever  one  may 
think  of  its  agencies  and  methods,  there  can  hardly  be  a 
doubt  as  to  its  object.  In  his  "Apologia  pro  Vita 
Sua,"  1  Newman  claims  that  it  was  "a  spiritual  awaken- 
ing to  spiritual  wants,"  that  the  leaders  were  in  line 
with  the  religious  necessities  of  their  age,  and  that 
while  they  were  "  superior  to  the  age,"  they  were  yet 
"carrying  out  its  higher  points."  Results  in  some  con- 
siderable measure  vindicate  this  claim.  For  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  in  many  ways  the  rehgious  Hfe  of  the 
Anglican  church  was  elevated  by  it,  and  that,  false  as 
were  many  of  the  principles  enunciated,  and  extrava- 
gant as  were  many  of  the  methods  pursued,  it  has 
had  for  its  result  the  conservation  of  important  religious, 
theological,  and  ecclesiastical  interests.  The  rapidity 
and  extent  of  the  movement  indicate  that  somehow  it 
found  response  in  the  conscious  religious  needs  of  men, 
or  awakened  a  sense  of  need  of  which  they  were  not 
conscious.  It  is  claimed  for  it,  and  there  is  no  reason 
for  doubting  the  correctness  of  the  claim,  that  within 
four  years  after  the  initiative,  in  1833,  it  had  spread 
over  all  England,  and  that  too  despite  the  fact  that  "  the 
*  Tracts  for  the  Times '  went  straight  against  the  whole 
course  of  the  church  of  England  for  the  last  three 
centuries." 

iPage  140. 


554   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

The  unorganized  character  of  the  movement  is  also 
in  evidence.  It  had  no  effective  leadership  in  the  mod- 
ern sense  of  the  term.  Its  supporters  were  advocates 
rather  than  organizers.  Newman,  the  most  prominent 
figure  and  the  dominating  force  among  them,  was,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  confession,  wholly  deficient  in  organ- 
izing and  administrative  ability.  He  was  introvertive 
and  sensitive  and  shy.  "  He  would  have  shuddered  at  the 
very  thought  of  founding  a  sect  or  creating  a  schism," 
and  "  the  natural  gentleness  which  shrank  from  giving 
pain"  and  "a  dread  of  the  trials  which  faith  itself 
might  have  to  encounter  in  the  storms  of  life  "  may,  per- 
haps, in  part  account  for  his  lack  of  initiative.  Pusey 
also,  who  brought  to  the  movement  the  prestige  of  high 
position  and  a  great  name,  was  a  thinker  and  a  scholar 
rather  than  a  man  of  action.  Whatever  may  be  the 
final  verdict  as  to  the  value  of  Newman's  work  during 
those  days  of  agitation,  and  whatever  our  estimate  of 
the  rationality  of  his  principles  and  the  sanity  of  his 
methods,  it  is  not  probable  that  the  earnestness  and  sin- 
cerity of  his  piety  will  be  successfully  discredited.  He 
may  have  been  fanatical ;  he  may  have  from  the  first 
lacked  balance,  as  his  brother  Francis  charges  ;  he  may 
at  times  have  been  arrogant,  as  his  mother  and  sister 
seemed  to  think ;  he  may  have  been  self-deceived,  as  there 
is  abundant  ground  to  suspect,  for  with  respect  to  this 
very  question  he  says,  *'  Who  can  know  himself  .'*  "  He 
may  have  been  secretive,  may  have  involved  himself  in 
seemingly  irreconcilable  contradictions,  and  in  stress  of 
battle  may  have  sometimes  fought  wildly ;  he  may  have 
been  ambitious  for  intellectual  and  spiritual  domina- 
tion :  but  that  he  was  dishonest,  as  Kingsley  practically 


THE   ANGLICAN   MOVEMENT  2^5 

charged  in  his  famous  onslaught  upon  him,  and  as  his 
own  brother  broadly  intimates,  that  his  motives  were  at 
bottom  other  than  sincerely  religious,  will  not  be  readily 
credited  by  any  man  who  has  ever  felt  the  power  of  his 
passionately  earnest  soul.  To  elevate  the  religious  life 
of  the  church  was  manifestly  his  steadfast  aim.  To 
effect  this  he  believed  it  necessary  to  restore,  what  he 
assumed  to  be  lost,  a  sense  of  the  sacredness  and 
authority  of  the  church,  so  that  it  may  become  a  greater 
power  in  men's  lives.  He  had  been  trained  in  the 
evangelical  branch  of  the  church,  as  was  the  case  with 
some  of  his  most  prominent  associates.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  character  of  the  religious  teaching  and 
nurture  of  his  home,  with  respect  to  which  his  brother 
and  his  brother-in-law  Mozley  seem  to  differ,  he  himself 
has  made  it  certain,  as  a  matter  of  record,  that  his  early 
life  was  powerfully  influenced  by  the  writings  of  Scott 
and  of  Romaine,  and  others  who  were  numbered  among 
the  Evangelicals,  men  whose  earnest  piety  and  whose 
fame  were  the  pride  of  that  school.  It  was  the  "un- 
worldliness  "  as  well  as  "  intellectual  independence  "  of 
Scott,  to  whom  he  "  owed  his  soul,"  that  attracted  him. 
During  the  early  part  of  his  Oxford  career  he  was  num- 
bered among  the  Evangelicals,  and,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  was  at  Oxford  with 
him,  the  fact  was  placed  to  his  discredit.  Within  four 
years  of  the  beginning  of  the  movement  he  seems  to 
have  been  more  of  an  EvangeUcal  than  a  High  Church- 
man, although  he  was  already  diverging  from  the  Evan- 
gelicals upon  the  doctrine  of  apostoHc  succession. 
But  of  the  degeneracy  of  the  Evangelicals  at  that  time 
there  can  be  but  little  doubt.     Mr.  Mozley's  account  of 


256   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

St.  Edmund's  Hall,^  the  headquarters  of  the  EvangeHcals 
during  Newman's  residence  at  Oriel  College,  may  be 
the  exaggeration  of  an  opponent,  but  with  all  due  con- 
sideration for  partisan  feeling,  it  leaves  the  impression 
of  intellectual  degeneracy  and  of  defective  social  con- 
science. They  were  noted  then,  as  they  have  been 
since,  for  missionary  zeal,  but  the  tone  of  their  piety 
was  emotional  and  sentimental,  and  had  very  likely  a 
touch  of  cant.  Their  preaching  dealt  largely  with  the 
cross  of  Christ,  and  less  with  his  person  and  character. 
They  laid  much  stress  upon  the  doctrine  of  election, 
upon  Christian  assurance,  and  upon  the  depravity  of 
human  nature,  and  they  were  intolerant  of  those  who 
differed  from  them  in  opinion.  It  is  not  difficult  to 
detect  the  ground  of  Whately's  contempt  for  them,  and 
of  Robertson's  subsequent  strong  ethical  reaction  against 
them,  and  this  may  also  in  part  account  for  Newman's 
break  with  them.  But  high  Anglicanism  was  not  in 
much  better  condition.  Its  type  of  piety  was  formal 
and  conventional,  its  preaching  was  insubstantial,  its 
parochial  v/ork  was  perfunctory.  There  was  abundance 
of  conventional  almsgiving,  and  but  little  ethical  and 
religious  devotion  to  the  welfare  of  men.  To  awaken 
the  whole  church  to  a  new  religious  life  was  without 
doubt  the  aim  of  the  Oxford  movement  of  the  last  cen- 
tury, not  the  less  really,  although  in  a  very  different 
way,  than  the  movement  of  the  preceding  century. 

No  powerful  movement  of  the  human  spirit  can  be  an 
isolated  movement.  The  Oxford  movement  had  an  artis- 
tic or  literary  as  well  as  religious  significance.  Newly 
awakened   reUgious   sentiments    were    associated   with 

1  "  Reminiscences,"  Vol.  I,  p.  242  ff. 


THE   ANGLICAN   MOVEMENT  257 

a  new  movement  in  the  realm  of  the  feelings  and  of  the 
imagination.  The  Oxford  movement  was  one  of  the 
remote  and  indirect  results  of  those  revolutionary  move- 
ments in  thought  and  life  during  the  previous  century 
that  had  mightily  stirred  the  souls  of  men.  These  move- 
ments were  now  finding  expression  in  new  literary  forms. 
The  world  and  life  had  new  significance.  The  reality 
and  the  ever  abiding,  vitalizing  presence  of  God  in  His 
world  had  taken  new  hold  of  men's  convictions.  He 
was  no  longer  a  remote  spectator  of  His  world,  and  the 
world  was  no  longer  a  machine.  It  was  charged  with 
new  life,  and  it  spoke  to  men  with  a  new  meaning.  A 
side  of  man's  nature  had  been  suppressed  and  robbed 
of  its  rights,  and  now  it  had  awakened  and  was  exact- 
ing reprisals. 

In  Germany  this  literary  movement  had  appeared  at 
the  close  of  the  previous  century  in  the  form  of  Roman- 
ticism. Carlyle  was  making  the  British  public  familiar 
with  some  of  its  chief  representatives  in  the  world  of 
letters,  —  Goethe  and  Novalis  and  Jean  Paul  Richter. 
They  represented  the  secular  aspects  of  Romanticism. 
Schleiermacher  represented  its  religious  aspects.  In 
England  the  movement  appeared  in  the  early  part  of 
the  last  century.  It  took  the  form  of  a  more  subjective, 
more  meditative,  but  also  a  more  passionately  earnest 
type  of  literature.  It  was  the  literature  of  a  new  type 
of  subjective  experience,  as  the  literature  of  the  former 
period  had  been  more  objective  and  formal  and  passion- 
less and  respectable.  Byron  marks  the  transition  be- 
tween the  two  periods.  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth 
represent  it  on  its  secular  side,  having  also  strong 
affiliations  with  the  church  upon  which  they  made  a 


258       REPRESENTATIVE    MODERN   PREACHERS 

powerful  impression.  It  was  through  them  that  the 
emotions  and  imaginations  of  the  choicer  spirits  in  the 
church  were  stirred.  Keble  appears  as  the  poet  of 
the  "  Christian  Year,"  and  Newman  is  awakened  to  a 
new  artistic  as  well  as  religious  life.  Keble  and  New- 
man are  not  disciples  of  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth,  but 
apart  from  them  these  promoters  of  the  Oxford  move- 
ment can  hardly  be  conceived  as  existing.  Much  that  lies 
behind  the  English  Romanticism  of  this  period  finds  no 
place  in  these  men.  They  were  narrow  and  provincial, 
and  lacked  the  large  humanistic  spirit  that  belonged  to 
the  men  who  influenced  them.  They  thrust  the  new 
emotions  and  imaginings  that  had  been  awakened 
within  them  into  archaic  realms,  and  brought  out  in 
new  forms  what  was  old.  What  seemed  new  and 
modern  in  the  literary  work  of  these  men  was  also  old. 
The  symboHc,  the  quasi-sacramental  significance  of  the 
material  world  was  an  old  thought  of  the  church  Fathers. 
It  was  a  master  thought  with  Wordsworth,  but  it  won 
fresh  significance  in  the  hands  of  Keble  and  Newman. 
Butler  had  appropriated  one  phase  of  it  from  the  church 
Fathers,  and  it  gave  a  new  didactic  significance  to  the 
principle  of  analogy.  Keble  appropriated  it  from  But- 
ler; and  Newman  from  Keble,  as  he  had  interpreted, 
enlarged,  and  enriched  it  in  new  poetic  forms.  It 
stirred  the  powers  of  his  imagination  and  led  him  to 
interpret,  not  the  world  and  humanity  in  terms  of  new 
poetic  thought,  but  the  old  doctrines  of  the  church  in 
new  dogmatic  forms.  Newman's  genius  in  vivifying  the 
past  by  the  power  of  his  imagination  was  altogether 
unique.  In  connection  with  this  quickening  of  new 
literary  Ufe  there  came  revived  interest  in  the  artistic 


THE   ANGLICAN   MOVEMENT  259 

aspects  of  worship,  the  outcome  of  which  is  the  later 
rituaHstic  phase  into  which  the  original  Oxford  move- 
ment passed,  and  in  which  it  lost  itself.  There  was 
also  a  revival  of  interest  in  ecclesiastical  architecture 
and  in  other  products  of  church  art,  especially  as  they 
had  appeared  in  past  ages  in  Germany. 

In  connection  with  this  quickening  of  the  religious 
imagination  and  consequent  reaction  against  the  old 
rationalistic  and  deistic  methods  of  thought,  there  came 
a  revival  of  the  historical  and  critical  spirit.  In  the 
liberal  school  represented  by  Whately,  Arnold,-  Thirl- 
wall,  and  Milman,  the  historic  method  displaced  the 
dogmatic,  and  critical  investigation  was  substituted  for 
dogmatic  assumptions  and  traditional  apologetics.  New- 
man had  been  associated  with  Whately  at  Oriel  and  was 
under  his  influence.  From  Whately  he  learned  the  art 
of  correct  and  discriminating  thinking.  Under  this  in- 
fluence Newman,  prior  to  1827,  was  drifting  in  the  direc- 
tion of  liberalism.  He  was  inclined  to  abandon  the 
dogmatic  for  the  historic  method  and  the  method  of 
common  sense.  Liberalism  he  defines  as  "a  denial 
of  the  dogmatic  principle."  It  is  a  substitution  of  the 
historic  for  the  dogmatic  method.  Newman's  definition 
of  liberalism  is  correct.  When,  however,  later  in  life  he 
defines  liberalism  as  agnosticism  and  indifference,  and 
charges  it  with  holding  the  position  that  "there  is  no 
positive  truth  in  religion  and  that  one  creed  is  as  good 
as  another,"  he  becomes  reckless.  The  real  difference 
between  his  position  and  that  of  the  liberals,  i.e.  between 
the  dogmatic  and  liberal  position,  with  respect  to  the 
significance  of  church  doctrine  is  that,  in  the  one  case 
dogma  is  the  source  of  religion,  and  in  the  other  it  is 


26o      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

only  the  product  of  religious  reflection.  When  he  aban- 
doned liberalism  and  became  a  defender  of  dogmatism 
he  took  the  position  that  there  can  be  no  rehgion  with- 
out dogma.  The  historic  spirit,  however,  Newman 
shared,  as  did  all  his  associates.  There  was  revived  in- 
terest in  the  study  of  the  Fathers,  and  the  "  Library  of 
the  Fathers  "  is  one  of  the  best  products  of  the  Angli- 
can movement.  In  fact,  it  may  be  called  preeminently 
a  historic  movement.  But  the  difference  between  the 
liberal  and  the  reactionary  school  was  that  the  latter 
were  not  wilHng,  thoroughly  and  consistently,  to  apply 
the  critical  method  in  historical  investigation.  The 
former  appHed  it  freely,  but  only  with  such  success  as 
was  possible  at  that  early  day.  Whately  was  a  logician, 
but  he  did  not  believe  in  applying  the  methods  of  logic 
to  theology.  He  believed  strongly  and  intelligently  in 
historic  criticism,  and  applied  it  to  his  investigation  of 
the  teachings  of  Paul.  Arnold  applied  it  in  the  secular 
sphere  to  his  investigations  of  Roman  history,  and  in 
the  spiritual  sphere  to  Old  Testament  ethics.  Milman 
applied  it  to  Latin  Christianity,  and  Thirlwall  to  scho- 
lastic philosophy,  and  advocated  its  elimination  from  the 
theology  of  the  church.  Newman  was  afraid  of  it.  He 
used  history  in  support  of  his  dogmatic  assumptions, 
refusing  to  apply  the  critical  methods  to  his  investiga- 
tion of  historic  material.  This  is  the  point  of  divergence 
between  the  liberals  and  the  reactionists.  The  latter 
came  to  the  Fathers  from  the  dogmatic,  not  from  the 
critical,  point  of  departure,  and  they  thus  sought  to 
bolster  their  theories  of  the  church  and  its  doctrines. 
In  connection  with  this  historic  movement  there  was 
developed  among  the  liberals  a  new  conception  of  the 


THE  ANGLICAN  MOVEMENT  261 

ethical  aspects  of  Christianity.  Whately  and  Arnold 
are  strong  advocates  of  Christianity  as  an  ethical  system. 
Arnold  was  led  to  apply  it  to  political  and  social  prob- 
lems. It  is  this  ethical  conception  of  Christianity  that 
stands  behind  his  Erastianism,  and  behind  his  interest 
in  the  social  problems  of  his  day.  The  advancing  dem- 
ocratic spirit,  that  has  since  so  fully  developed  in  Eng- 
land, furthered  Arnold's  movements.  It  was  Arnold 
who  foresaw  that  "  Labor  will  meet  with  reenforcement 
from  the  philosopher,  philanthropist,  and  statesman." 
And  Maurice,  Kingsley,  and  Robertson  are  the  successors 
of  Arnold,  and  of  the  early  liberal  school  known  as 
Broad  churchmen,  in  the  application  of  the  ethical 
principles  of  Christianity  to  social  and  poUtical  con- 
ditions. Against  all  this  and  against  the  free  applica- 
tion of  the  methods  of  historic  criticism  as  they  were 
applied  by  the  liberals,  Newman  vigorously  reacted.  It 
is  sufficiently  evident  that  Newman  was  afraid  of  such 
questions,  or,  at  least,  of  the  results  of  a  free  application 
of  the  methods  of  historic  criticism.  The  critical  method 
was  destructive  of  the  dogmatic  method.  His  brother 
Francis  charges  that  Newman  was  indifferent  to  all 
questions  of  moral,  reform,  and  we  may  well  believe  it, 
so  far  at  least  as  these  questions  were  disassociated 
with  his  own  conception  of  the  proper  ecclesiastical 
method  of  dealing  with  them.  In  a  kind  of  moral  fright, 
therefore,  Newman  drew  back  as  from  an  abyss  of  sub- 
jectivism and  secularism.  He  thought  he  saw  that  the 
Evangelicals  were  playing  into  the  hands  of  the  liberals, 
and  he  abandoned  them.  Liberalism  is  "the  halfway 
house  to  atheism."  The  state  authorities  are  under  the 
influence  of  the  liberals ;  they  seek  to  bring  the  church 


262   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

into  subordination  to  the  state.  Newman  supports  the 
autonomy  of  the  church  as  its  only  basis  of  security. 
Thus  he  more  and  more  deeply  intrenched  himself  in 
devotion  to  the  dogmatic  method,  and  the  end  was 
Rome. 

It  was  impossible  that,  with  the  religious,  literary,  and 
historical  movement,  there  should  not  have  been  asso- 
ciated a  movement  of  thought  still  more  fundamental. 
There  was,  at  that  time,  a  process  of  change  in  philo- 
sophical conceptions.  Mr.  Hutton,  in  his  monograph 
on  "  Cardinal  Newman,"  ^  indicates  Newman's  philo- 
sophical attitude.  He  believed  "that  the  philosophy 
which  (like  Locke's  in  modern  times)  insisted  on  what 
is  called  evidence  that  a  revelation  was  divine  before 
reposing  any  trust  in  it,  was  the  kind  of  philosophy 
which  would  have  undermined  all  the  greatest  spiritual 
movements  that  the  world  ever  experienced,  and  extin- 
guished all  noble  enthusiasm  in  the  very  moment  of  its 
birth."  These  are  weighty  words,  and  they  seem  faith- 
fully to  indicate  Newman's  philosophical  attitude.  It  is 
evident  that  he  had  already  abandoned  the  empirical 
philosophy  of  his  day,  upon  which  the  defence  of  Chris- 
tianity had  been  based,  and  that  he  had  felt  the  need 
of  a  more  spiritual  type  of  philosophy.  The  empirical 
philosophy  was  behind  the  deistic  conceptions  of  the 
universe  and  the  rationalistic  methods  of  defending 
Christianity.  In  a  very  interesting  passage  in  the 
"  Apologia,"  2  wherein  he  quotes  the  substance  of  an 
article  published  by  him  in  the  British  Critic  of  1839, 
two  years  before  the  appearance  of  Tract  90,  entitled 
**  The  State  of  Rehgious  Parties,"  he  refers  to  the  reli- 

1  Page  173.  2  Page  138. 


THE  ANGLICAN   MOVEMENT  263 

gious,  literary,  historical,  and  philosophical  influences 
under  which  the  leaders  in  the  Anglican  movement  had 
been  working.  In  referring  to  the  philosophical  influ- 
ences, he  speaks  of  Coleridge  in  the  following  striking 
language :  "  While  history  in  prose  and  verse  was  thus 
made  the  instrument  of  church  feelings  and  opinions,  a 
philosophical  basis  for  the  same  was  laid  in  England  by 
a  very  original  thinker,  who,  while  he  indulged  a  liberty 
of  speculation  which  no  Christian  can  tolerate,  and  ad- 
vocated conditions  which  were  often  heathen  rather  than 
Christian,  yet  after  all  instilled  a  higher  philosophy  into 
inquiring  minds  than  they  had  hitherto  been  accustomed 
to  accept.  In  this  way  he  made  trial  of  his  age  and 
succeeded  in  interesting  its  genius  in  the  cause  of  cath- 
olic truth."  These  words  remind  us  of  the  divergent 
methods  in  which  great  fundamental  truths  may  be 
applied.  They  recall  to  us  the  divergent  schools  of 
thought  into  which  men  who  claim  to  follow  Kant  and 
Schleiermacher  have  separated.  It  is  no  more  strange 
that  Friedrich  Schlegel  should  have  taken  the  princi- 
ples of  Kant  and  of  Schleiermacher  over  into  the  Roman 
church  than  that  Newman  should  have  carried  Coleridge 
and  Wordsworth  there.  It  is  evident  that  Newman 
knew  from  personal  experience  the  "  all-corroding,  all- 
dissolving  scepticism  of  the  intellect  in  religious  inqui- 
ries." He  knew  the  philosophic  scepticism  that  denies 
the  competence  of  the  speculative  intellect  alone  to  pro- 
nounce authoritatively  and  finally  upon  the  august  prob- 
lems of  religion  and  theology.  Unfamiliar,  probably, 
with  the  revolution  in  the  theory  of  knowledge  that  the 
latter  part  of  the  previous  century  had  witnessed  in 
Germany,  he  had  followed  Coleridge  in  assuming  the 


264   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

position  that  it  is  the  human  soul  in  its  moral  and  spirit- 
ual activities  that  becomes  the  organ  of  religious  knowl- 
edge, and  thus  becomes  the  point  of  attachment  for  an 
objective  revelation,  and  finally  the  point  of  attachment 
for  objective  church  authority.  The  appHcation  which 
Newman  makes  of  the  subjective  principle  as  containing 
the  true  doctrine  of  faith  in  external  church  authority 
is,  of  course,  wholly  unsatisfactory  and  inconsequential. 
But  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  he  has  already  appropri- 
ated the  subjective  principle,  and  that,  up  to  a  certain 
point,  it  moves  step  by  step  with  the  philosophy  of 
Christian  experience.  The  process  by  which,  at  last,  he 
found  a  refuge  in  the  church  of  Rome  by  yielding  to  his 
scepticism  with  respect  to  the  competence  of  the  specu- 
lative intellect  in  the  realm  of  religion,  which  found  no 
adequate  counterweight  in  the  subjective  principle  of 
ethical  and  spiritual  experience,  may  appear  farther  on. 
Perhaps  enough  has  been  said  to  indicate  that  the 
Oxford  movement,  although  reactionary  with  respect 
to  the  theological  and  political  movements  of  Newman's 
age,  was  nevertheless  based  on,  and  supported  by,  influ- 
ences and  agencies  that  are  distinctively  modern. 


II 

NEWMAN   THE   ECCLESIASTICAL   DOGMATIST 

When  Newman  entered  the  Roman  church  he  went 
home.  It  was  a  plunge  as  into  his  native  element. 
The  transition  was  an  ''absorption."  He  enters  as  with 
a  shout  of  exultation  and  triumph.  The  restlessness 
and  confusion  of  uncertainty  vanish,  and  his  entire  sub- 


THE   ECCLESIASTICAL  DOGMATIST  265 

sequent  career  indicates  that  it  was  a  joyful  emancipa- 
tion. Even  his  literary  style  discloses  the  influence  of 
the  change.  We  may  wonder  that  a  man  of  his  intel- 
Hgence  and  culture  and  training  could  have  made  such 
a  surrender  of  himself.  But  after  all  it  was  not  strange. 
It  was  the  necessity  of  his  position  and  the  legitimate 
issue  of  many  years  of  dissatisfaction  and  unrest.  It 
was  not  a  supernatural  call,  or  a  "  miraculous  admission 
into  the  Roman  communion  *'  as  his  superficial  brother- 
in-law  grotesquely  suggests.  There  was  nothing  ghostly 
about  it.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  it  necessary  to  as- 
sume that  he  had  all  along  been  dishonest.  He  was 
indeed,  as  he  tells  us,  conscious  of  no  doctrinal  change 
when  he  entered  the  Roman  church;  but  this  does  not 
mean  that  there  was  no  change  at  all  save  in  ecclesi- 
astical relations.  But  confessedly  the  change,  whatever 
it  may  have  been,  was  not  very  important.  He  was,  in 
fact,  already  substantially  upon  Romish  ground  without 
being  fully  aware  of  it.  He  had  tried  to  believe  that 
the  Anglican  church  was  the  original,  apostolic  catholic 
church  held  in  bondage  to  the  state,  which  to  him  rep- 
resented the  unconsecrated  kingdom  of  this  world.  By 
the  bent  of  his  nature,  by  all  its  leading  tendencies,  and 
by  the  influences  and  circumstances  of  his  Hfe  he  was 
in  a  sort  precommitted  to  the  dogmatic  position  of  the 
Roman  church.  Newman  was  a  born  ecclesiastic,  as 
Brooks  was  a  born  humanist.  To  him,  as  his  brother 
suggests,  "the  church  was  everything,"  as  to  Brooks 
humanity  behind  it  was  everything,  and  the  church 
nothing  apart  from  its  significance  for  humanity. 
Newman  looked  out  upon  and  estimated  life  from  the 
ecclesiastical  point  of  view,  as  Brooks  from  the  human- 


266   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

istic  point  of  view.  To  Newman  the  world  was  a  wholly 
depraved  and  lost  world.  To  Brooks  it  was  indeed  a 
sinful,  but  also  a  redeemed  world.  Newman  looked 
too  exclusively  upon  its  darkness,  and  found  in  life 
only  a  miscarriage  of  justice  and  goodness  and  truth. 
Brooks  looked  through  it  upon  the  glory  of  its  ideal 
reality,  and  found  in  it  already  the  kingdom  of  God. 
To  Newman  the  world  has  significance  and  value  only 
as  related  to  Christianity,  organized  as  the  catholic 
apostolic  church,  whose  mission  it  is  to  rescue  and 
dominate  the  world.  To  Brooks  it  has  a  significance 
and  value  of  its  own  for  the  life  that  now  is  as  well 
as  for  that  which  is  to  come,  and  the  church  as  the 
organ  of  Christianity  is  only  the  partial,  and  is  des- 
tined to  be  the  ultimate,  complete  realization  of  that 
which  belongs  ideally  to  the  world  as  the  kingdom  of 
God.  If  we  look  closely  into  Newman's  characteristic 
tendencies  and  into  the  circumstances,  influences,  and 
experiences  of  his  life,  we  shall  find  the  material  for  the 
building  of  the  ecclesiastical  dogmatist. 

One  may  easily  suspect  that  he  was,  in  a  sort,  sub- 
consciously committed  to  Romanism  by  the  dominance 
of  his  imagination.  He  was  a  man  of  exceedingly  deli- 
cate aesthetic  susceptibilities.  He  inherited  a  highly 
artistic  temperament,  which  as  poet  and  musician  he 
cultivated  from  early  years.  He  was  born  into  and 
he  lived  in  the  realm  of  the  imagination^  The  invisible 
was  always  to  him  the  real.  The  "  Apologia  "  is  an  inter- 
pretation of  the  processes  by  which  he  was  led  into  the 
Roman  church,  and  a  skilful  defence  of  his  integrity 
and  consistency.  It  is  a  rare  piece  of  psychological 
analysis,  and  has  all  the  interest  of  a  modern  psycho- 


THE   ECCLESIASTICAL   DOGMATIST  267 

logical  romance.  This  early  development  and  domi- 
nance of  the  imagination  are  here  made  apparent,  and 
Newman  seems  to  recognize  it  as  a  subconscious  in- 
fluence determinative  of  his  subsequent  career.  He 
was  an  idealist  of  the  most  extravagant  type.  His 
sense  of  the  invisible  was  a  genius.  There  are  "two 
and  two  only  supreme  and  luminously  self-evident 
beings,  myself  and  my  Creator,"  he  says.^  In  this 
supreme  self,  and  God-consciousness  he  is  early  in- 
clined to  a  **  mistrust  of  the  reality  of  material  phe- 
nomena." The  visible  world  is  at  best  but  a  complex 
of  symbols  of  invisible  reality.  His  "imagination  ran 
on  unknown  influences,  on  magical  powers  and  talis- 
mans." "I  thought,"  he  says,  "that  life  might  be  a 
dream,  or  I  an  angel  and  all  this  world  a  deception, 
my  fellow-angels  by  a  playful  device  concealing  them- 
selves from  me,  and  deceiving  me  with  the  semblance 
of  a  material  world."  It  is  apparently  easier  to  believe 
in  angels  than  in  men,  in  God  and  in  soul  than  in  the 
material  world.  It  was  this  "  childish  imagination  " 
that  he  carried  into  his  religion.  It  intensified  his  con- 
viction of  the  reality  of  his  conversion,  "of  which,"  he 
says,  "  I  am  still  more  certain  than  that  I  have  hands 
and  feet."  He  finds  significance  in  the  fact  that  at  ten 
years  of  age  he  had  marked  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and 
had  drawn  the  Hkeness  of  a  necklace  upon  his  first 
verse-book.  His  brother  notes  as  significant  his  early 
remoteness  from  ordinary  life,  his  introverted  habit  of 
mind,  his  fastidiousness,  and  later  on  his  inclination 
toward  Virgin  worship.  He  notes  also  the  influence 
of  Romanism  upon  his  imagination  as  seen  in  some  of 

1  "  Apologia,"  pp.  54-56. 


268   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

his  grotesque  utterances  at  St.  Mary's  during  the  last 
days  of  his  connection  with  the  Anglican  church.  It 
is  to  such  an  imagination  that  the  Roman  church  with 
its  antiquity,  its  imposing  claims  to  apostolicity  and 
divine  authority,  its  treasury  of  saintly  merit,  and  the 
artistic  splendor  of  its  ritual,  powerfully  appeals.  He 
confesses  that  in  those  years  of  preparation  for  his 
mission,  which  he  had  long  cherished,  —  and  to  such 
a  temperament  the  consciousness  of  a  mission  seems 
native,  —  the  Roman  church  with  its  venerable  shrines 
and  noble  churches  much  impressed  his  imagination 
and  touched  his  heart.  It  was  this  vivid  image-mak- 
ing power  that  intensified  his  faith  and  made  real  its 
object,  so  that  he  believed,  not  only  with  all  his  heart 
and  conscience  and  will,  but  with  all  the  force  of  his 
imagination.  Such  a  man  may  easily  lose  the  balance 
of  his  powers,  and  this  explains,  perhaps,  the  lack. of 
poise  of  which  his  brother  speaks.  Such  a  man  may 
even  become  a  fanatic  in  his  superstitious  credulity. 
For  what  is  superstition  or  fanaticism  in  religion  but 
just  this  one-sidedness  and  dominance  of  the  imagina- 
tion that  result  in  loss  of  balance  in  the  activities  of 
the  soul  ?  What  is  extra-belief  but  gratuities  of  belief 
imposed  upon  the  mind  by  the  tricks  of  the  imagina- 
tion ?  So  strong  was  Newman's  conviction  that  feeling 
and  imagination  should  have  free  play  in  the  religious 
life  that  he  became  a  sort  of  advocate  of  fanaticism 
and  superstition.  "  In  one  of  my  first  sermons  I  said, 
I  do  not  shrink  from  uttering  my  firm  conviction  that 
it  would  be  a  gain  to  the  country,  were  it  vastly  more 
superstitious,  more  bigoted,  more  gloomy,  more  fierce, 
in  its  religion  than  at  present  it  shows  itself   to  be." 


THE   ECCLESIASTICAL   DOGMATIST  269 

These  words  may  be  interpreted  as  a  rhetorical  license 
which  must  be  permitted  the  preacher,  but  the  truth 
is  that  Newman  would  not  regard  what  he  advocates  as 
superstition  or  bigotry  at  all,  but  the  reasonableness  of 
a  dogmatic  faith. 

It  was  perhaps  in  part  his  religious  imagination  that 
predisposed  him  to  the  ascetic  life.  From  the  first  he 
was  inclined  to  asceticism.  He  never  mingled  in  the 
sports  of  childhood.  He  was  sober  and  secretive  and 
incHned  to  solitude.  He  tells  us  that  at  the  age  of 
fifteen  the  impression  was  borne  in  upon  him  that  he 
was  called  to  a  celibate  life,  and  that  before  he  was 
thirty  it  had  become  a  settled  conviction.  At  Oxford 
he  led  an  abstemious  life.  He  fasted  often  and  never 
at  any  time  indulged  in  luxuries.  He  was  fascinated 
with  the  idea  that  his  religious  life  was  to  be  one  of  vig- 
orous self-denial.  And  what  he  imposed  upon  himself, 
he  inculcated  upon  others.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
for  him  the  Christian  ideal  was  the  ascetic  ideal.  The 
Christian  life  is  the  contradiction  of  the  worldly,  self- 
indulgent  life,  and  it  must  be  exactingly  and  painfully 
self-denying.  In  such  self-denial  and  self-imposed 
hardship  there  is  merit,  and  the  merit  is  one  of  the 
legitimate  motives  in  the  striving  for  it.  It  is  a  privi- 
lege, winning  large  rewards,  to  share  the  sufferings  of 
Christ.  By  disobedience  to  the  law  of  cross-bearing 
the  worldly  Christian  forfeits  the  unspeakable  privilege 
of  suffering  adversity,  which  profits  the  soul  and  hon- 
ors Christ.  Penance  is  a  Christian  virtue,  and  penance 
is  with  him  the  representative  term  for  repentance. 
Repentance  is  not  simply  sorrow  for  sin  and  turning 
from  it,  but   it   is   the   penance   that   "adds  what   sin 


270      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

deserves."  ^  Kingsley  misapprehended  Newman's  doc- 
trine of  the  economic  method  of  interpreting  truth 
according  to  the  fitness  of  the  recipient  to  appreciate 
it,  a  principle  that  is  recognized  by  all  writers  on 
Christian  ethics,  as  Newman  showed.  He  misinter- 
preted his  sermon  on  ''Wisdom  and  Innocence"^  as  advo- 
cating untruthfulness.  But  he  was  not  mistaken  in  charg- 
ing that  the  discourse  on  "  The  Apostolic  Christian  "  ^ 
advocates  the  ascetic  Hfe  as  the  normal  Christian  life. 
The  more  carefully  one  reads  this  discourse,  the  stronger 
the  impression  becomes  that  Newman  intended  to  ex- 
alt the  ascetic  life  as  the  only  worthy  type  of  Chris- 
tian life.  It  is  clear  enough  that  this  is  the  life  he 
would  have  all  his  hearers  adopt  as  best  realizing 
the  Christian  ideal.  He  speaks  of  the  "  picture  which 
Scripture  gives  us  of  true  Christian  life,"  and  insists 
that  we  must  all  "  attempt  to  measure  our  own  life  by 
it."  And  this  idea  of  a  "  Christian  life  as  set  forth  in 
the  Scriptures  is  something  very  definite."  Then  he 
proceeds  to  describe  it  as  an  ascetic  life.  The  monk 
and  the  nun  are  our  modern  Scriptural  Christians. 
''What  are  the  humble  monk  and  the  holy  nun  and 
other  regulars,  as  they  are  called,  but  Christians  after 
the  very  pattern  given  us  in  Scripture }  "  "  Who  but 
these  give  up  home  and  friends,  wealth  and  ease,  good 
name  and  liberty  of  will,  for  the  kingdom  of  heaven  ? 
Where  shall  we  find  the  image  of  St.  Paul  or  St.  Peter 
or  St.  John,  or  of  Mary  the  mother  of  Mark,  or  of  Philip's 
daughters,  but  in  those  who,  whether  they  remain  in 
seclusion  or  are  sent  over  the  earth,  have  calm  faces, 

1  "Apologia,"  p.  59.         2  «  Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,"  XX. 
8  Idid.,  XIX. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL   DOGMATIST  27 1 

and  sweet,  plaintive  voices,  and  spare  frames,  and  gentle 
manners,  and  hearts  weaned  from  the  world,  and  wills 
subdued  ?  "  Beautiful,  saintly  lives  no  doubt  they  are. 
But  we  have  here  the  realization  of  the  essentially 
Romish  conception  of  an  ascetic  separateness  from 
the  world  as  the  mark  of  a  normal  Christian  life. 
Newman's  message  of  the  unworldly  life  was  an 
important  one  for  his  age.  He  made  a  strong  and 
salutary  impression  upon  self-indulgent  Christians  in  all 
communions.  But  the  form  in  which  his  message  came, 
its  severely  ascetic  note,  robbed  it  of  much  of  its  legiti- 
mate power.  Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  words  above 
quoted  were  uttered  while  he  was  still  in  the  Anglican 
church,  and  they  contain  a  premonition  of  the  issue  of 
the  conflict  in  which  he  had  been  engaged.  Yet  he 
lingered  two  years  longer  in  the  church.  The  volume 
containing  this  discourse  was  issued  after  he  had  re- 
signed his  position  at  St.  Mary's,  and  while  he  was  still 
awaiting  developments.  The  discourses  all  bear  directly 
or  indirectly  upon  questions  that  were  then  in  agitation, 
and  they  all  advocate  a  type  of  character  and  of  life  and 
a  type  of  ecclesiasticism  that  find  their  fullest  exempli- 
fication in  the  Roman  church.  They  are  an  advocacy 
of  the  ecclesiastical  conception  of  life,  and  proclaim 
his  rapid  advance  toward  the  Roman  communion. 
Practical  religion  is  living  for  the  life  to  come,  as  worldli- 
ness  is  living  for  the  present  lif e,^  —  a  conception  that 
contains  only  a  half  truth.  The  presence  of  God  is 
found  only  in  the  church ;  when  God  leaves  the  church, 
it  becomes  weak  and  beggarly  like  the  world.^  Because 
God  is  found  only  in  the  church,  it  only  is  the  kingdom 

1  Page  81.  2  Page  104. 


2/2       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

of  God.  His  conception  of  the  world  as  an  unredeemed 
world,  and  as  wholly  without  God,  is  extravagant  and  is 
disheartening.  In  all  these  sermons,  as  in  the  "  Paro- 
chial and  Plain  Sermons,"  not  less  than  in  the  '*  Dis- 
courses to  Mixed  Congregations,"  preached  after  he 
entered  Rome,  the  prevaiHng  theme  is  the  ruin  of  the 
world,  and  the  church  is  summoned  to  rally  for  the 
spiritual  conquest  of  the  world,  and  to  show  that  to 
be  a  Christian  is  not  an  easy  thing.  He  criticises  the 
effort  to  make  reHgion  cheerful.  We  must  take  our 
feast  with  bitter  herbs.  Persecution  is  the  note  of  the 
church,  perhaps  the  most  abiding  note  of  all.  Appar- 
ently, therefore,  the  only  normal  condition  for  the  church 
is  that  of  persecution.  There  is  constant  lamentation 
over  "  the  present  state  of  the  Holy  Church."  In  the 
present  distress  he  advocates  "living  by  rule."^  His 
praise  of  the  saints  is  indiscriminate.  It  is  highly 
idealistic,  and  is  accompanied  with  perpetual  dispar- 
agement of  everything  modern.  His  illustrations,  save 
in  the  way  of  admonition,  are  never  drawn  from  mod- 
ern life,  but  are  always  scriptural  or  ecclesiastical. 
The  idea  of  *' sacred  habit,"  is  a  frequently  recurring 
idea.  "  If  we  claim  to  be  the  church,  let  us  act  like 
the  church,  and  we  shall  become  the  church."  By  faith- 
ful devotion  to  outward  church  duties,  God  "  will  vouch- 
safe to  bless  it,  and  to  make  it  a  means  of  teaching  us  a 
deeper  reverence  and  a  more  constraining  love,  and  will 
draw  us  on  into  the  very  bosom  of  catholic  sanctity  and 
the  very  heart  of  catholic  affection,  by  observances  and 
prayers,  which  in  themselves  are  little  worth,  and  excite 
the  jeer  or  the  criticism  of  the  worldly  and  profane." 

1  Pages  25,  117,  261,  272. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL   DOGMATIST  273 

Surely  in  all  this  we  have  the  utterance  of  one  who  has 
the  heart  of  an  ecclesiastic,  which  is  ever  drawing  nearer 
to  its  proper  home. 

Newman's  constitutional  and  habitual  conservatism 
is  another  note  of  his  essentially  ecclesiastical  mind. 
Against  all  forms  of  liberalism,  political,  ecclesiastical,  or 
theological,  he  was  from  the  first  strenuously  opposed. 
If  during  the  early  Oriel  period,  under  the  influence  of 
Whately,  he  was  inclined  to  or  tolerant  of  it,  it  was  but 
a  transient  phase  and  had  no  permanent  significance  for 
his  life.  He  was  always  interested  in  politics,  and  "  his 
politics  occupy  an  earlier  place  in  the  memory  of  his 
pupils  than  his  theology."  ^  He  has  been  called  "  a 
lord  chancellor  thrown  away."  This  doubtless  with 
reference  to  his  genius  for  diplomacy.  In  his  constitu- 
tional tendencies  as  well  as  in  his  theories  he  would  have 
been  a  Tory  chancellor.  If  he  had  become,  as  might 
have  happened,  tutor  to  the  Prince  George  of  his  day, 
he  would  have  been  a  Tory  tutor  and  might  have  figured 
as  the  future  king's  counsellor.  Even  in  boyhood  he 
was  the  antagonist  of  democracy  and  the  defender  of 
royalty  and  despotism,  and  seemingly  on  no  other  ground 
than  that  of  a  sort  of  fanatically  conservative  respect 
for  power  as  such.^  The  Oxford  movement  was  as  hos- 
tile to  political  as  to  ecclesiastical  and  theological  liberal- 
ism. Its  promoters  were  all  Tories  and  defenders  of 
hereditary  privilege.  The  democratic  spirit  was  gain- 
ing ground.  It  disclosed  itself  in  the  aspiration  of  the 
unprivileged  classes  to  rise  in  the  world.  There  was 
a  great  quickening  of  worldly  aspiration  and  ambition. 

1  "  Reminiscences,"  Vol.  I,  pp.  34-36. 

2  "  Early  History  of  Cardinal  Newman,"  pp.  6-10. 


2/4       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

Liberal  movements  were  furthered  by  this  aspiration 
and  at  the  same  time  they  promoted  it.  It  was  against 
this  that  the  Oxford  Tories  reacted.  Against  Arnold 
especially,  with  his  Erastianism,  there  was  violent  oppo- 
sition. So  bitter  was  Newman  that  he  questioned 
whether  Arnold  could  be  a  Christian.  Because  of  the 
attitude  of  the  Liberals  Newman,  like  the  Tory  church- 
men of  to-day,  was  soon  convinced  that,  for  its  own 
security,  the  church  should  be  separated  from  the  state. 

This  habit  of  mind  conditioned  his  conception  of  the 
church.  He  could  conceive  of  Christianity  only  as  a 
community  organized  as  a  visible  apostolic  church,  in 
which  centres  a  divine  authority,  and  he  could  conceive 
of  no  religion  as  possible  but  the  religion  of  dogma. 
From  the  age  of  fifteen  this  had  been  his  conception. 
A  reHgion  of  feeling  and  sentiment  is  a  delusion  and 
a  snare.^  Accordingly  the  principles  for  which  he 
contended  were  first,  the  visible  apostolic  church  with 
its  authoritative  bishops,  its  sacraments  as  channels 
of  grace,  and  its  discipline  of  penance,  and  secondly, 
the  authority  and  validity  of  dogma  as  against  the  anti- 
dogmatic  principle  of  liberalism.  How  he  defended 
his  attitude  toward  all  forms  of  liberalism  on  theoretic 
grounds  we  shall  see  farther  on.  Just  now  the  point 
in  hand  is  his  conservative  habit  of  mind,  that  of  itself 
precommitted  him  to  the  religion  of  dogma  and  to  the 
church  which  is  the  supreme  embodiment  of  privilege 
and  authority. 

A  love  for  intellectual  preeminence,  not  to  say  domina- 
tion, is  another  characteristic  of  Newman's  ecclesiastical 
mind,  which  led  him  ultimately  to  the  proper  sphere  for 

1  "  Apologia,"  pp.  95-96. 


THE   ECCLESIASTICAL  DOGMATIST  275 

its  realization.  There  is,  indeed,  no  evidence  that  New- 
man had  a  vulgar  ambition  to  make  for  himself  a  name 
as  a  chmxh  agitator  and  reformer.  He  certainly  had 
no  ambition  to  develop  a  sect  or  organize  a  party  in  the 
church.  If  that  had  been  his  object,  his  procedure 
would  have  been  different.  And  yet  it  was  impossible 
that  a  man  of  his  force  of  personality,  of  his  zeal  for 
what  he  held  to  be  true,  especially  of  his  dogmatic  habit 
of  mind,  into  which  so  much  of  personal  will  entered, 
should  not  have  had,  it  may  be  an  unconscious  or  half- 
conscious,  passion  for  dominating  the  minds  and  con- 
sciences and  wills  of  others.  Indeed  he  himself 
acknowledges  that  he  had  a  strong  desire  to  influence 
others.  "  While  I  was  fighting  for  the  Anglican  church 
in  Oxford,"  he  says,^  **I  was  very  glad  to  make  con- 
verts, and  though  I  never  broke  away  from  that  rule  of 
my  mind  (as  I  may  call  it)  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  of  finding  disciples  rather  than  seeking  them, 
yet  that  I  made  advances  to  others  in  a  special  way  I 
have  no  doubt."  He  acknowledges  also  the  correctness 
of  the  charge  that  he  was  "  fierce  "  in  his  methods  of 
agitation,  and  this  suggests  at  once  the  passion  of  the 
advocate.  Newman  was  not  a  mere  interpreter  of  the 
truth.  He  put  strong  conviction  and  force  of  will  into 
his  advocacy.  He  was  not  willing  to  let  the  truth  work 
its  own  way  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  others.  He  put 
his  own  will  into  his  faith,  and  he  would  press  the  wills 
of  others  into  the  service  of  their  faith.  He  was  an 
investigator,  but  he  carried  his  dogmatic  precommittals 
into  his  investigations,  and  became  a  personal  advocate 
in  the  very  processes  of  his  investigation.  He  wished 
1  "  Apologia,"  p.  247. 


2/6       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

to  win  intellectual  and  moral  ascendency  over  men.  In 
this  he  resembles  many  other  great  theologians  of  the 
church.  It  is  a  mark  of  the  theological  and  ecclesi- 
astical mind.  It  is  the  necessity  of  the  dogmatist  to 
identify  his  own  personality  with  the  truth  he  advocates. 
Nor  is  this  altogether  a  matter  for  reproach.  Any 
man  who  is  intense  in  his  convictions  and  strong  in  his 
opinions  will  wish  to  win  the  allegiance  of  others  to 
the  truth  he  cherishes.  This  passion  for  intellectual 
supremacy  is  inseparable  from  Newman's  conscious- 
ness of  a  mission.  He  returned  to  England  in  1833  with 
the  strong  conviction  that  he  had  a  work  to  do  there. 
His  brother  charges  that  he  makes  himself  and  his 
friend  Froude  ridiculous,  without  seeming  to  know  it, 
in  adopting  the  words  of  Achilles  as  his  motto  :  — 

"Now  that  I  am  coming  back  to  battle, 
You  shall  see  the  difference." 

It  was  Newman's  opinion  that  every  man  should 
make  up  his  mind  by  the  time  he  is  thirty  years  old 
what  his  life  work  shall  be.  He  had  evidently  made  up 
his  mind  what  his  own  task  should  be.  It  was  easy  for 
him  to  influence  men.  He  was  a  man  of  most  fascinat- 
ing personality.  He  impressed  men  by  the  strength  of 
his  sympathy,  the  earnestness  of  his  convictions,  and  the 
force  of  his  will,  rather  than  by  the  reasonableness  of 
his  opinions,  or  the  soundness  of  his  judgments,  or  the 
clearness  of  his  insights.  He  was  an  exceedingly  inter- 
esting and  impressive  teacher.  As  a  preacher,  he  won 
a  hearing  by  the  distinctively  religious  character  of  his 
message,  which  appeals  to  the  higher  needs  of  men,  by 
the   passionate  intensity  of  his   advocacy,  and   by  the 


THE   ECCLESIASTICAL  DOGMATIST  277 

force  and  grace  of  his  diction,  rather  than  by  any  skill 
as  an  orator.  In  private  intercourse  he  was  at  his  best, 
and  young  men  gathered  about  him  as  about  an  oracle. 
Powerful  as  was  his  influence  in  the  pulpit,  his  most 
effective  work  was  through  the  press  and  in  the  class 
room  and  in  the  social  circle.  He  was  not  unconscious 
of  his  power,  nor  did  he  fail  to  use  it  consciously.  Why 
should  he  not  have  used  it  thus  ?  No  man,  especially 
no  man  of  such  power  as  Newman  possessed,  can  rea- 
sonably be  asked  to  deny  himself  the  right  and  the 
privilege  of  seeking  ascendency  over  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  men  in  the  advocacy  of  what  he  regards  as 
vital  to  their  welfare,  provided  always  that  it  be  done 
honestly.  Whether  Newman  advocated  views  that  were 
consistent  with  his  ordination  vows  as  an  Anglican 
clergyman  may  be  questioned.  But  that  he  was  hon- 
est in  his  advocacy  and  regarded  his  position  as  tenable 
will  not  be  generally  questioned  in  our  day.  New- 
man's brother  charges  him  with  inordinate  ambition 
and  with  a  loss  of  moral  balance  in  carrying  out  his 
schemes  of  ambition.  It  was  an  unfraternal  and  un- 
seemly exhibition  that  he  made  of  himself,  in  so  doing, 
and  especially  in  waiting  till  after  Newman's  death 
before  he  did  it.  One  suspects  that  when  Newman  is 
charged  with  arrogance  and  with  lack  of  humiUty  of 
spirit  he  is  not  altogether  correctly  represented.  The 
dogmatic  attitude  doubtless  always  has  the  seeming  of 
arrogance.  Estimated  by  the  highest  rational  and 
moral  standard  it  is  arrogance,  and  the  high  Anglican, 
both  as  an  Englishman  and  as  a  churchman,  has  vast 
capacity  for  such  arrogance.  But  we  must  estimate 
Newman  as  a  man  from  the  basis  of  his  personal  dis- 


278       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

position,  not  from  the  basis  of  his  dogmatic  position  and 
dogmatic  method.  It  is  above  all  discreditable  that 
Francis  Newman  should  draw  aside  the  veil  that  hides 
the  sanctities  of  home,  and  should  quote  his  sister's 
words  of  criticism :  **  John  can  be  most  amiable,  most 
generous.  He  can  win  warm  love  from  all  his  friends  ; 
but  to  become  his  friend  the  essential  condition  is  that 
you  see  everything  along  his  line,  and  accept  him  as 
your  leader."  One  fancies  this  to  be  a  correct  estimate 
of  Newman.  But  it  suggests  the  infirmity  and  the 
narrowness  of  the  dogmatist  and  the  offensiveness  of 
the  dogmatic  method,  rather  than  the  arrogance  of 
personal  ambition.  But  the  point  in  hand  is  that  it  is 
precisely  this  passion  for  intellectual  and  moral  ascen- 
dency, which  belongs  to  the  consciousness  of  a  dog- 
matic mission,  that  is  the  mark  of  the  ecclesiastical 
mind. 

But  it  is  Newman's  attitude  toward  religious  truth 
which,  more  clearly  than  anything  else  perhaps,  illus- 
trates the  predominance  of  the  ecclesiastical  mind. 
His  theory  of  religious  knowledge,  of  religious  certainty, 
is  one  of  the  most  subtle  and  obscure  and  perplexing 
problems  of  his  career.  It  is  a  psychological  phenome- 
non, which,  when  once  apprehended,  throws  light  upon 
his  procedure,  and  clearly  indicates  his  precommittal 
or  predestination  to  the  Roman  church.  There  is  in  it 
a  singular  blending  of  scepticism,  of  dialectic,  of  piety, 
and  of  credulity.  Newman  was  fundamentally  and 
characteristically  a  dialectician.  He  was  the  most  subtle 
and  exhaustive  of  reasoners.  He  penetrated  deeply  into 
the  intricacies  of  a  subject  and  was  sure  to  discover  all 
its  difficulties.     Being  of  a  religious  turn  of  mind,  it  was 


THE   ECCLESIASTICAL  DOGMATIST  279 

a  necessity  that  he  should  bring  this  subtlety  to  bear  upon 
the  problems  of  rehgion.  He  believed  in  and  advocated 
the  use  of  reason  in  rehgion.  In  his  case  it  served  a 
double  use.  He  used  his  reason  to  defend  his  position. 
This,  perhaps,  was  the  chief  impression  made  upon 
the  minds  of  those  with  whom  he  discussed  religious 
questions.  His  subtlety  and  unconscious  facility  in 
reading  his  own  ideas  into  a  discussion  is  seen  in  his 
"  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,"  in  which  he 
undertakes  to  apply  the  modern  doctrine  of  evolution 
to  the  development  of  the  dogmatic  system  of  the 
Roman  church.  It  is  a  painful  exhibition  of  a  subtle, 
dialectical  mind  dealing  with  what  we  in  our  day  re- 
gard as  relatively  insignificant  subjects  and  insignificant 
difficulties.  But  it  is  also  an  interesting  exhibition  of  fa- 
cility in  using  reason  to  defend  an  already  won  position. 
It  is  this  tendency  which  his  brother  has  in  mind  in 
characterizing  the  method  of  his  reasoning.  Give  him 
his  premises,  make  any  concession  to  them,  and  he  will 
bring  you  to  confusion.  This  is  the  mental  habit  of  one 
who  uses  his  reason  to  defend  his  position. 

But  Newman  also  used  his  dialectic  in  preparing  the 
way.  for  the  selection  of  his  position.  He  had  much  to 
say  about  the  negative  and  preparative  value  of  logical 
processes.  But  their  chief  value  in  his  apprehension 
was  to  show  the  impossibility  of  arriving  at  truth  by 
such  processes.  As  Bushnell  thought  that  the  chief 
use  of  metaphysics  is  to  demonstrate  that  metaphysics 
is  impossible,  so  Newman  thought  that  the  chief  use 
of  the  speculative  reason  in  religious  investigation  is  to 
demonstrate  its  futility.  It  cannot  verify  or  vindicate 
religious  truth.     Newman  was  an  intellectual  sceptic. 


28o       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

From  the  rationalistic  point  of  view  he  was  an  agnostic. 
Reason  is  of  value  in  furnishing  preparative  proof.  But 
the  chief  thing  proved  is  its  own  incompetency.  His 
ultimate  attitude  was  that  there  is  no  halfway  house  be- 
tween atheism  and  Romanism,  although  he  had  tried 
for  a  long  time  to  find  such  a  refuge  in  Anglicanism. 
Much  has  been  said  about  his  sceptical  attitude  with 
respect  to  the  problems  of  religion.  Atheists  even  have 
claimed  him  as  a  sort  of  ally  because  he  regarded  hu- 
man reason  as  incompetent  to  furnish  adequate  evidence 
of  the  existence  of  God.  There  is  nothing  strange  in 
this  sceptical  attitude.  It  is,  in  part,  due  to  the  natural 
workings  of  his  own  highly  speculative  mind,  by  reason 
of  which  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  obscure  the  diffi- 
culties that  gather  about  any  important  problem.  The 
more  important  the  problem,  the  more  difficulties  he 
saw.  But  it  is,  in  part,  also  the  outcome  of  the  disinte- 
grating processes  to  which  the  theory  of  knowledge  had 
been  subjected  by  the  philosophic  criticism  of  a  previ- 
ous period,  the  results  of  which  had  crept  into  his  think- 
ing during  the  early  period  of  his  Oxford  life.  He  had 
familiarized  himself  with  sceptical  writers  who  discussed 
the  problem  of  religious  knowledge.  He  tells  us  that 
when  he  was  fourteen  years  old,  he  "  read  Paine's  tracts 
against  the  Old  Testament,  and  found  pleasure  in  think- 
ing of  the  objections  which  were  contained  in  them." 
He,  at  the  same  time,  read  Hume's  essay  on  the  mira- 
cles and  he  was  familiar  with  Gibbon.  His  brother-in- 
law,  Mozley,  tells  us  that  he  had  sceptical  books  about 
him  during  the  Oxford  campaign,  although  he  kept 
them  carefully  locked  up  and  concealed  from  his  pupils. 
He  had  early  adopted  Bishop   Butler's  principle  that 


THE   ECCLESIASTICAL  DOGMATIST  28 1 

"  probability  is  the  guide  of  life."  He  gives  an  interest- 
ing statement  of  the  matter  in  the  "Apologia."  The 
most  that  the  logical  understanding  can  do  for  us  in  in- 
vestigating the  problems  of  religion  is  to  give  us  prob- 
ability. In  a  profoundly  interesting  and  illuminating 
account  of  his  own  intellectual  processes,  he  speaks  of 
*'  the  all-corroding,  all-dissolving  scepticism  of  the  intel- 
lect in  religious  inquiries."  It  can  never  land  us  in  the 
realm  of  truth.  Normal  reason,  indeed,  would  reach 
the  truth;  but  the  reason  of  man,  outside  the  church, 
the  unredeemed  reason,  is  fallen  and  depraved.  And 
he  boldly  declares  that  "  every  article  of  the  Christian 
creed,  whether  as  held  by  Catholics  or  Protestants,  is 
beset  with  intellectual  difficulties,  and  it  is  a  simple  fact 
that  for  myself  I  cannot  answer  those  difficulties."  He 
cites  as  examples  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  and  of 
Transubstantiation.^  Of  the  latter  he  says,  "  It  is  diffi- 
cult, impossible  to  imagine,  I  grant ;  but  how  is  it  diffi- 
cult to  believe  ?  "  One  may  believe  what  one  may  not 
even  imagine !  Not  even  the  doctrine  of  the  divine 
existence  can  stand  before  the  corroding  processes  of 
the  intellect.  In  vain  do  we  rely  upon  anything  that  is 
human  for  assurance ;  reason,  education,  even  Scripture 
itself,  cannot  stand  before  the  onset.  The  only  power 
that  is  "adapted  to  be  a  working  instrument  in  the 
course  of  human  affairs  for  smiting  hard  and  throwing 
back,  the  immense  energy  of  the  aggressive  intellect," 
is  a  power  "  possessed  of  infallibility  in  religious  teach- 
ing." Thus  the  intellect  gives  us  no  certainty.  But 
Newman  was  a  man  of  religious  necessities,  and  it  is  the 
impulse  of  piety  to  find  some  basis  of  assurance.    Where, 

1  Pages  232,  265-291. 


282        REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

then,  shall  it  be  found  ?  It  is  not  necessary  to  enter 
upon  a  thorough  analysis  of  Newman's  theory  of  knowl- 
edge. It  is  set  forth  with  full  elaboration  in  his  "  Gram- 
mar of  Assent "  and  is  briefly  touched  upon  in  the 
"  Apologia."  What  is  the  basis  of  certainty  in  religion  ? 
We  have  some  standing-ground  in  ethical  and  religious 
experience.  The  testimony  of  the  Christian  conscience, 
and  heart  has  value.  In  the  discourse  entitled 
"Grounds  for  steadfastness  in  our  Religious  Profes- 
sion," 1  he  speaks  of  the  self-evidencing  power  of  reli- 
gion, and  declares  that  no  traditional  religion  avails 
without  its  personal  appropriation  in  experience;  and 
he  finds  no  contradiction  between  this  position  and  the 
position  that  religion  is  dogma  and  comes  to  us  with 
the  note  of  external  authority.  In  the  ''Apologia"  he 
writes:  "If  I  looked  into  a  mirror  and  did  not  see  my 
face,  I  should  have  the  sort  of  feeling  which  actually 
comes  upon  me  when  I  look  into  this  living,  busy  world 
and  see  no  reflection  of  its  Creator.  This  is  to  me  one 
of  the  great  difficulties  of  this  absolute  primary  truth 
to  which  I  have  referred  just  now."  Then  he  adds, 
"  Were  it  not  for  this  voice  speaking  so  clearly  in  my 
conscience  and  my  heart,  I  should  be  an  atheist."  ^  The 
speculative  intellect  cannot  find  God,  but  He  reveals 
Himself  in  the  human  heart  and  conscience.  Here 
apparently  we  have  the  validating  power  of  religious 
experience.  We  might  infer  that  the  moral  and  reli- 
gious nature  are  an  adequate  organ  of  religious  knowl- 
edge. But  this  is  by  no  means  his  position.  This 
would  presuppose  faith  in  the  subjective  principle  that 

1  "  Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,"  XXIII. 

2  "  Apologia,"  pp.  264-269. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL   DOGMATIST  283 

would  ally  him  with  Luther  and  with  Protestants.  We 
must,  therefore,  look  farther.  As  the  reason  gives  us 
no  absolute  certainty,  so  neither  does  the  heart  nor  con- 
science. There  is  no  basis  of  certainty  in  any  form  of 
mere  subjective  experience.  The  mind  must  be  com- 
pelled to  make  a  venture  by  the  pressure  of  the  will 
Belief  is  a  venture  of  the  mind  under  the  dominance  of 
the  will.  It  is  not  secured  and  certainty  is  not  won  till 
the  will  is  surrendered.  We  "  will  to  believe."  And 
here  appears  the  application  of  Butler's  theory  of  prob- 
abihty  as  interpreted  by  Keble.  It  was  this  notion  of 
the  living  power  of  faith,  this  resolution  to  beUeve 
where  the  evidence  furnished  is  only  probable  evidence, 
that  he  got  from  Keble,  as  he  himself  tells  us.  But  it 
is  not  to  the  experiences  of  the  heart  and  conscience, 
not  to  the  persuasions  of  our  moral  and  religious  nature, 
that  we  are  to  will  to  surrender.  We  will  to  submit  to 
an  external  authority  which  speaks  to  us  as  with  the 
voice  of  God.  This  is  not  an  irrational  surrender,  with- 
out a  basis  of  evidence.  We  are  predisposed  to  believe 
by  the  experiences  of  our  inner  life.  But  we  need  more 
than  this.  The  church  comes  to  us  with  its  claims  of 
authority.  We  examine  these  claims  in  the  light  of 
such  evidences,  external  and  internal,  as  are  furnished 
us,  and  we  find  them  in  harmony  with  the  needs  of  our 
own  souls  and  lives.  This  does  not  give  us  certainty. 
It  is  only  probable  evidence ;  but  we  yield  because  the 
persuasions  of  the  heart  and  conscience,  together  with 
this  external  evidence,  are  stronger  than  our  intellectual 
uncertainty.  Having  willed  to  believe,  we  reach  assur- 
ance. We  can  thus  believe  even  when  all  the  ordinary 
experiences  of  Hfe  are  opposed  to  our  belief,  and  such 


284   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

belief  is  a  moral  obligation.  In  the  problems  of  reli- 
gion, therefore,  private  judgment  must  be  surrendered. 
The  right  of  private  judgment  may  indeed  be  exercised 
in  forming  our  estimate  of  the  results  of  religion  in  the 
lives  of  bodies  of  men,  but  this  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  exercising  such  judgment  in  determining  the  valid- 
ity of  Christian  doctrines.^ 

It  was  because  he  could  not  find  in  the  Anglican 
church  all  the  notes  of  an  objectively  authoritative 
church,  viz.  apostolicity,  catholicity,  and  autonomy, 
that  he  wavered  so  long.  This  is  the  explanation  of 
his  uncertainty  and  of  the  seeming  contradictoriness 
of  his  position.  The  Anglican  church  may  be  apos- 
tolic, but  it  is  not  catholic,  and  in  subordination  to  the 
state  can  never  be  autonomous.  Upon  the  authority  of 
such  a  church  he  could  not  rest.  He  must  find  a  church 
upon  which  he  can  rest  with  absolute  certainty.  The 
charge  of  moral  timidity  in  all  this  process,  as  well  as 
the  charge  of  mental  suicide  and  of  moral  confusion 
and  contradiction,  has  some  basis.  His  career  presents 
the  singular  spectacle  of  an  extreme  of  intellectual 
scepticism  that  was  offset  by  an  extreme  of  religious 
credulity.  Contrast  Luther's  bold  appeal  to  the  attest- 
ing power  of  the  moral  and  religious  consciousness  and 
to  the  witness  of  the  spirit  in  the  heart.  Luther  com- 
plained that  the  Roman  church  robbed  the  Christian  of 
his  assurance,  and  he  boldly  appealed  from  the  church 
to  Christian  experience.  Newman  finds  no  basis  of  cer- 
tainty in  any  form  of  subjective  experience,  rational, 
ethical,  or  spiritual,  nor  in  the  voice  of  the  Spirit  within 
the  individual  soul.  But  he  finds  it  in  a  church  whose 
1  "  Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,"  XXIII,  p.  359. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  DOGMATIST  285 

preposterous  claims  have  been  refuted  by  historic  criti- 
cism, and  which,  if  ever  validated  at  all,  must  be  vali- 
dated by  a  reason  whose  processes  we  are  taught  by 
Newman  at  the  very  outset  to  distrust.  It  was  this 
attitude  toward  the  problems  of  religion  that  naturally 
led  him  toward  the  Roman  church. 

The  outward  circumstances  of  Newman's  life  and 
the  personal  influences  brought  to  bear  upon  him  were 
also  tributary  to  the  ultimate  result.  It  is  as  if  all  things 
were  in  combination  to  work  out  the  one  predestined 
issue.  Influences  seemingly  the  most  contradictory 
wrought  toward  the  same  end.  Those  who  agreed 
with  him  stimulated  and  encouraged  him,  and  those 
who  were  hostile  to  him  only  intrenched  him  the  more 
firmly  in  his  position.  The  Evangelicalism  in  which  he 
had  been  nurtured,  instead  of  drawing  him  farther  from 
the  goal,  seems  almost  to  have  started  him  toward  it. 
His  committal  to  the  religion  of  dogma  at  the  age  of 
fifteen  was  clearly  the  outcome  of  the  prevailing  con- 
ception of  Christianity  as  a  system  of  doctrine.  He 
never  thoroughly  grasped  the  conception  of  Christian- 
ity as  primarily  a  disclosure  of  personality,  and  as  only 
secondarily  a  revelation  of  truth.  Nor  had  he  formed 
the  true  conception  of  dogma.  With  the  Evangelicals 
of  his  day,  dogma  had  come  to  mean  the  product  of  the 
reflective  life  of  the  church  in  successive  generations. 
But  with  him  dogma  was  the  apostolic  deposit  of  truth, 
passed  on  to  following  generations  and  forever  fixed. 
It  was  not  the  product  of  church  reflection  upon  the 
truths  and  facts  of  Christianity,  but  something  given 
from  the  first  by  tradition.  And  it  was  largely  through 
the  influence  of  writings  put  into  his  hands  at  Oxford 


286   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

by  those,  some  of  them  Evangelicals,  who  wished  to  lay 
new  emphasis  upon  the  apostolicity  of  the  Anglican 
church,  but  whose  purpose  was  far  remote  from  the 
ultimate  result,  that  he  was  led  to  incorporate  the 
notion  of  apostolic  tradition  in  his  conception  of  dogma. 
Having  accepted  the  apostolic  authority  of  tradition,  he 
of  course  came  to  accept  as  final  authority  the  dogmas 
of  tradition.  Whatever  the  intent  of  his  teachers,  they 
seem  always  fatuitously  to  be  furnishing  fuel  to  his 
fanatical  zeal  for  tradition ;  and  there  is  a  certain  grim 
humor  in  his  references  in  the  "  Apologia  "  to  the  influ- 
ence of  books  that  were  put  into  his  hands  by  men  who 
would  have  led  him  away  from  Rome,  but  who  were  in 
fact  instrumental  in  furnishing  incentive  toward  it. 

His  earliest  and  lifelong  conception  of  the  world  as 
the  kingdom  of  evil,  set  off  in  contrast  with  the  king- 
dom of  God,  came  from  Calvinistic  and  Puritan  Evan- 
gelicalism. The  sharp  distinction  between  the  sacred 
and  the  secular,  the  saint  and  the  sinner,  heaven  and 
hell,  mercy  and  wrath,  is  essentially  Calvinistic;  and 
these  conceptions  are  closely  allied  with  conceptions 
that  prevail  in  the  Roman  church.  He  himself  notes 
the  points  of  likeness,  and  intimates  that  this  phase  of 
Calvinistic  Evangelicalism  had  precommitted  him  to  the 
Romish  conception  of  the  world.  Even  Law's  "  Serious 
Call,"  which  has  influenced  so  many  lives  in  the  cause 
of  Evangelical  piety,  seems  to  have  predisposed  him  to 
the  Romish  conception  of  the  perpetual  conflict  between 
God  and  the  world.  His  personal  companionships  also 
had  a  like  effect.  The  earliest  and  strongest  influence 
is  that  of  Keble.  That  of  Froude,  however,  is  scarce 
less  decisive,  and  one  may  venture  to  suggest  that  it 


THE   PREACHER  28/ 

must  always  remain  a  matter  for  surprise,  not  to  say  of 
discredit,  that  a  man  of  Newman's  caliber  should  have 
been  influenced  so  strongly  by  so  slight  and  crude  and 
irrational  a  person  as  Hurrell  Froude. 

Thus  by  the  force  of  surrounding  influences  he  is 
gradually  set  toward  his  goal.  The  catholicity  of  the 
Anglican  church  is  surrendered  and  all  hope  of  its  au- 
tonomy, while  he  still  holds  to  its  apostolicity.  Then 
its  apostoHcity  is  placed  in  doubt,  and  he  holds  as  a  last 
refuge  to  its  note  of  sanctity.  Then  at  last,  when  all 
the  notes  of  a  true  church  seem  to  have  vanished  and 
in  1843  he  resigns  St.  Mary's,  he  shows  that  he  is 
already  substantially  on  Romish  ground.  Thence  on- 
ward we  hear  only  of  the  Catholic  church,  and  in  the 
"Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,"  his  church  is  the 
regal  church,  which  is  itself  the  kingdom  of  God.  The 
Christian  church  is  a  perpetuation  of  the  Jewish  church 
as  a  temporal  not  less  than  as  a  spiritual  power,  repre- 
senting all  the  regal  functions  of  Christ.  There  is  but 
one  branch  of  the  Christian  church  that  can  rightly 
claim  this,  and  therefore  only  one  that  can  be  the  true 
church,  and  that  is  the  church  at  whose  portals  he 
stands.  And  when  during  the  two  remaining  years  he 
had  written  his  "  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine," 
which  he  laid  down  unfinished,  there  was  but  a  short 
step  through  the  open  door. 

Ill 

NEWMAN   THE   PREACHER 

Newman's  loss  of  position  and  of  prestige  in  the 
Anglican  church  did  not  result  in  a  loss  of  personal 


288   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

influence.  The  English  people  did  not  forget  him,  and 
he  never  lost  his  hold  of  them.  They  discredited  his 
theology  and  lost  confidence  in  his  judgment,  but  they 
never  lost  interest  in  the  man.  He  antagonized  their 
opinions,  he  cut  across  their  most  cherished  convictions, 
he  rebuked  them  for  their  worldliness,  he  exposed  their 
inconsistencies  and  satirized  their  frivolities,  but  he 
always  retained  a  certain  ascendency  over  their  imagina- 
tions and  their  hearts.  Few  modern  Englishmen  have 
won  a  securer  place  in  the  interest  of  their  countrymen. 
It  is  not  altogether  easy  to  explain.  Doubtless  they 
always  found  the  Englishman  in  him  still,  and  he  at- 
tracted them  by  the  magic  of  his  English  style.  But 
there  is  something  behind  all  this.  It  is  an  interesting 
tribute  to  the  force  and  grace  of  his  personality.  That 
personality  has  an  irresistible  fascination.  Its  energies 
disclose  themselves  in  all  his  writings,  but  most  of  all, 
perhaps,  in  his  sermons.  Behind  the  sermon  is  the  man, 
and  in  the  reading  there  is  always  an  indefinable  im- 
pression of  something  more,  which  the  product  only 
intimates.  What  is  said  is  the  product  of  a  well-stored 
mind  and  of  a  richly  nurtured  and  severely  trained 
character.  It  is  a  keen,  subtle,  incisive,  capacious  mind, 
with  stores  of  theological  learning  and  vast  emotional 
susceptibilities  and  passions,  and  the  ease,  the  fulness, 
the  acuteness,  and  the  suggestiveness  of  the  treatment 
intimate  that  but  a  small  part  is  said  of  what  might  be 
said.  The  thought  of  the  sermons  is  thrown  out  in  a 
free  and  affluent  manner,  and,  if  we  except  the  univer- 
sity and  the  occasional  sermons,  there  is  no  very  elabo- 
rate discussion.  Newman's  career  illustrates,  not  only 
the  influence  of  a  powerful  institution  upon  a  richly 


THE   PREACHER  289 

endowed  nature,  but  the  influence  of  that  nature  itself 
upon  the  entire  personality,  upon  its  products,  and 
upon  its  activities  in  the  leadership  of  men.  One  may- 
get  a  fair  impression  of  some  men's  preaching  without 
knowing  much  about  the  men.  This  is  the  case  with 
preachers  like  Spurgeon  and  Guthrie,  whose  homiletic 
quaHties  are  somewhat  obtrusive.  But  in  the  case  of 
Newman,  as  in  that  of  Augustine  and  that  of  most 
dogmatic  and  apologetic  preachers,  we  must  know  the 
man.  And  one  of  the  points  of  interest  in  Newman's 
preaching  is  the  interest  it  excites  to  know  more  about 
the  preacher.  The  "  Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons," 
preached  during  the  fifteen  years  of  his  incumbency  of 
St.  Mary's,  the  sermons  of  his  young  manhood,  includ- 
ing some  of  the  very  earUest,  have  perhaps  been  most 
widely  read  by  the  English  people.  Their  interest  lies 
largely  in  their  disclosure  of  the  struggles  of  his  own 
inner  life.  The  "  Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day  " 
disclose  more  care  in  the  preparation  and  are  of  special 
interest  as  disclosing  his  nearness  to  the  church  of 
Rome.  The  **  Occasional  Sermons  "  are  more  thought- 
ful and  elaborate,  and  the  **  University  Sermons "  are 
characterized  by  great  subtlety  of  thought  and  thorough- 
ness and  fulness  of  discussion.  But  the  "  Discourses  to 
Mixed  Congregations  "  disclose  a  spontaneity  and  free- 
dom of  movement  and  a  power  of  eloquence  that  are 
not  found  in  any  of  his  earlier  sermons.  They  were 
delivered  soon  after  entering  the  Roman  church  and, 
as  Mr.  Gladstone  suggested,  indicate  that  he  felt  him- 
self "unmuzzled."  There  is  a  passionate  intensity  of 
emotion  and  a  rushing  movement  of  style  in  these  dis- 
courses that  are  not  found  to  so  large  an  extent  in  other 


290   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

sermons,  and  they  disclose  the  fact  that  he  is  beginning 
to  cultivate  his  style  more  carefully  than  it  was  possible 
for4iim  during  the  days  of  controversy.  And  yet  there 
are  but  few  discourses,  if  any,  that  stand  out  in  such 
solitary  greatness  as  some  of  the  sermons  of  Robertson, 
or  of  Bushnell,  or  of  Brooks.  We  really  do  not  know 
much  about  Newman's  preaching  by  reading  here  and 
there  a  sermon,  we  must  read  them  widely  and  in  the 
light  of  his  career.  These  sermons  are  still  read  by  all 
classes  of  Englishmen  and  in  all  parts  of  Great  Britain. 
And  by  Romanists,  high  Anglicans,  Broad  churchmen. 
Evangelicals,  and  Dissenters  alike  they  are  regarded 
almost  as  classics.  There  is  hardly  any  exaggeration, 
from  the  cultivated  Englishman's  point  of  view,  in  a  re- 
mark of  Mr.  Hutton,  I  think  it  was,  of  the  London 
Spectator^  in  the  Contemporary  Review  a.  few  years  ago, 
to  the  effect  that  if  he  were  condemned  to  solitude  in 
some  remote  part  of  the  earth  and  had  choice  of  the 
authors  that  might  beguile  him  in  his  isolation,  he  would 
select  Shakespeare's  plays  and  Newman's  sermons. 
But  it  is  not  the  technique  of  the  sermon  that  com- 
mands men's  attention  and  interest.  It  is  the  man  and 
the  intensity  of  his  message.  This  is  why  in  the  read- 
ing the  first  impression  is  inadequate,  and  why  the  ser- 
mons increase  in  interest  by  frequent  reading.  It  was 
in  part  perhaps,  because  Newman  recognized  the  off- 
hand, unconventional,  unartistic  character  of  his  early 
sermons,  and  because  he  had  no  time  to  perfect  their 
literary  form,  that  for  a  long  time  he  refused  to  have 
them  published.  But  the  fact  that  they  were  prepared 
with  distinct  reference  to  the  spiritual  needs  of  his  con- 
gregation was  a  still  more  weighty  consideration.     It 


THE   PREACHER  291 

seemed  like  parading  before  the  public  the  secrets  of 
domestic  life. 

But  let  us  see  if  we  can  discover  some  of  the  chief 
points  of  value  in  Newman's  preaching. 

Perhaps  its  most  striking  quality  is  its  elevated  and 
intense  religious  tone.  Newman  was  intensely  hostile 
to  the  worldliness  of  his  time.  There  is  therefore  a 
certain  unearthly  note  about  his  preaching.  He  was 
a  most  skilful  and  powerful  advocate  of  religion  as  be- 
longing to  the  realm  of  the  invisible  and  eternal.  As 
we  have  seen,  a  most  vivid  sense  of  invisible  realities 
was  the  mark  of  his  religious  genius,  and  he  set  forth 
their  glories  with  all  the  vividness  of  his  imagination, 
all  the  passion  of  his  emotion,  and  all  the  skill  of  his 
dialectic.  The  reality,  the  priority,  the  commanding 
and  compelling  authority,  and  the  unchanging  glory  of 
the  invisible  and  eternal  may  almost  be  called  the  stock 
of  his  message.  And  perhaps  no  modern  preacher  has 
equalled  him  in  the  cogency  with  which  these  realities 
are  presented  to  men.  To  be  their  advocate  was  his 
conscious  calling.  In  "  The  Parting  of  Friends,"  ^  which 
contains  his  last  words  to  the  Anglican  church,  when 
he  left  St.  Mary's,  he  discloses  the  conscious  recognition 
of  the  worth  of  his  message.  The  sermon  closes  as  fol- 
lows :  **  And  O  my  brethren,  O  kind  and  affectionate 
hearts,  O  loving  friends,  should  you  know  any  one  whose 
lot  it  has  been,  by  writing  or  by  word  of  mouth,  in  some 
degree  to  help  you  thus  to  act ;  if  he  has  ever  told  you 
what  you  knew  about  yourselves,  or  what  you  did  not 
know ;  has  read  to  you  your  wants  or  feelings,  and  com- 
forted you  by  the  very  reading ;  has  made  you  feel  that 

1 "  Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,"  XXVI. 


292   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

there  was  a  higher  Hfe  than  this  daily  one,  and  a  brighter 
world  than  that  you  see ;  or  encouraged  you,  or  sobered 
you,  or  opened  a  way  to  the  inquiring,  or  soothed  the 
perplexed ;  if  what  he  has  said  or  done  has  ever  made 
you  take  interest  in  him,  and  feel  well  inclined  toward 
him ;  remember  such  a  one  in  time  to  come,  though  you 
hear  him  not,  and  pray  for  him  that  in  all  things  he  may 
know  God's  will  and  at  all  times  he  may  be  ready  to  ful- 
fil it."  The  pathos  and  delicacy  of  these  words  are  not 
more  impressive  than  the  ardent  affectionateness  of  the 
man  that  is  disclosed  by  them,  and  they  give  us  an  in- 
sight into  the  secret  of  his  personal  influence.  They 
reveal,  too,  the  consciousness  that  he  knew  the  souls  of 
men,  that  he  could  interpret  them  to  themselves,  making 
clearer  what  is  already  known,  bringing  to  light  what  is 
not  known,  encouraging  the  faint-hearted,  sobering  the 
frivolous,  opening  a  path  to  the  hesitating,  and  comfort- 
ing the  perplexed.  And  what  he  thought  himself  to  be, 
he  was,  and  such  was  his  work.  But  the  specific  point 
in  hand  just  here  is  his  delicately  expressed  conviction 
that  he  had  made  men  see  and  feel  "that  there  is  a 
higher  Hfe  than  the  earthly  one,  and  a  brighter  world 
than  the  one  men  see."  And  it  was  because  they  are 
native  to  the  human  soul  that  he  found  men. 

To  the  method  of  this  message  of  "  a  higher  life  "  and 
"a  brighter  world"  we  may  object;  it  is  the  extreme 
method  of  the  ecclesiastic  and  the  dogmatist.  It  is  in 
some  respects  a  gloomy  message.  Its  picture  of  human 
life  outside  the  church  is  exaggerated  and  distorted. 
Religion,  as  representing  the  realm  of  the  invisible  and 
eternal  and  as  the  supreme  interest,  must  be  isolated 
from  life.     It  must  also  be  embodied  in  a  visible  catholic 


THE   PREACHER  293 

church,  and  it  must  be  brought  to  men  by  that  church 
with  the  notes  of  divine  authority.  It  is  the  calling  of 
the  church  to  represent  the  invisible  realm  of  redemptive 
grace  in  outward,  visible  form.  God  is  in  the  church, 
and  in  the  church  alone,  as  the  invisible,  ever  abiding, 
redemptive  presence,  and  that  church  is  the  holy,  apos- 
tolic catholic  church,  which  is  identical  with  the  king- 
dom of  God.  Protestantism  belongs  to  the  uncovenanted 
and  unconsecrated  kingdom  of  this  world,  that  stands 
over  against  the  holy  catholic  church.  What  Protestant- 
ism, and  what  the  philanthropic  agencies  of  the  world 
are  doing  for  the  advancement  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 
which  is  wider  than  any  church  or  all  churches  com- 
bined, he  does  not  see.  It  is  a  lost  and  depraved  world, 
under  the  curse  of  God  as  the  kingdom  of  evil,  a  **vain, 
unprofitable,  overbearing  world."  Worldliness  is  living 
for  the  life  that  now  is,  and  rehgion  is  living  for  the  life 
to  come,  which  is  the  life  invisible  and  eternal.  The 
world  exists  for  visible  and  temporal  ends,  the  church 
for  invisible  and  eternal  ends.  But  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  church  and  the  world  is  not  merely  the  con- 
trast between  the  invisible  and  eternal  and  the  visible 
and  perishable,  which  is  in  fact  a  false  contrast,  but  it  is 
a  contrast  between  the  holy  and  the  unholy.  Sanctity 
belongs  to  the  church  alone.  Unsanctity  belongs  to  the 
world.  The  worldling  has  not  only  lost  all  good,  but  all 
vision  of  the  good,  all  vision  of  the  invisible  and  eternal. 
He  cannot  see  or  know  the  things  of  God.  Things  of 
temporal  interest  he  may  know.  He  may  know  justice, 
but  faith,  hope,  love,  he  cannot  know.  If  he  comes  to 
know  them,  it  is  not  simply  by  the  awakening  of  what  is 
already  within  him  and  native  to  him,  but  by  the  infu- 


294      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

sion  of  supernatural  grace  from  without.  Hence  all 
right  of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  religion  is  lost. 
The  church  must  be  separated  from  the  world  and  set 
over  against  it.     It  must  win  the  world  by  conquest. 

This  form  of  representation  doubtless  holds  very  im- 
portant truth,  and  its  presentation  by  Newman  is  singu- 
larly effective.  This  conception  of  a  mighty,  conquering 
church,  that  has  put  the  nations  under  its  feet  and  is 
subduing  the  world  to  God,  produces  a  certain  sense  of 
awe,  and  this  message  from  Newman's  lips  was  a  mighty 
message.  It  is  the  specific  message  of  the  later  years, 
but  it  is  substantially  the  message  of  his  life.  But  it  is 
a  gloomy  and  disheartening  picture  which  the  world  pre- 
sents. It  is  a  world  without  God,  save  as  it  is  the  dwell- 
ing-place of  a  holy  cathoHc  church. 

But  with  all  its  limitations  of  conception  and  repre- 
sentation, it  was  still  a  great  message,  and  it  reached  the 
souls  of  men.  Newman  had  a  false  conception  of  saint- 
liness  and  of  separation  from  the  world.  Robertson,  as 
unworldly  a  man  as  Newman,  had  a  much  more  rational 
and  healthy  conception  of  the  unworldly  life.  And  yet 
Newman  was  a  genuine  saint.  He  was  a  man  of  pro- 
found rehgious  convictions,  of  powerful  religious  emo- 
tions, of  quick  sense  of  spiritual  realities,  and  of  a 
consecrated  spirit.  Submission  to  the  will  of  God  in 
the  crucifixion  of  earthly  affections  is  a  theme  on  which 
he  Hkes  to  dwell.  Such  a  man  must  speak  with  power, 
if  he  has  any  vocation  to  speak  at  all.  He  took  no 
secular  or  semi-secular  subjects  into  the  pulpit,  but  dealt 
wholly  with  spiritual  themes.  He  was  not  a  ghostly 
man.  He  had  a  genuine  interest  in  human  life  and 
dealt  with  things  that  are  real.      But  the  tone  is  un- 


THE  PREACHER  295 

earthly.  In  an  age  when  men  are  so  almost  wholly 
absorbed  in  things  that  are  visible  and  temporal,  when 
the  lusts  of  the  flesh  and  the  lusts  of  the  eye  and  the 
vainglory  of  life  are  dominating  their  souls,  it  is  a  great 
blessing  to  the  church  and  to  the  world  that  so  great  a 
voice  should  be  heard,  telling  them  of  better  things. 
The  church  needs  to  be  reminded  that  there  is  a  differ- 
ence between  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  kingdom  of 
this  world,  between  the  saint  and  the  sinner,  between 
the  church  and  the  world,  between  him  who  serves  God 
and  him  who  serves  Him  not,  between  grace  and  nature, 
between  the  regenerate  and  the  unregenerate  man,  be- 
tween the  sacred  and  the  secular,  between  the  good  and 
the  bad,  and  between  heaven  and  hell.  It  should  indeed 
be  a  discriminating  message,  but  better  the  exaggerated 
form  than  no  message  at  all.  Newman's  unearthly  voice 
has  been  heard  in  the  Anglican  church,  and  but  for  him 
its  preaching  would  be  far  less  effective.  As  we  read 
Newman,  we  think  of  Robertson,  and  hear  an  echo  in 
new  form  of  the  same  unworldly  spirit.  Remote  as 
their  points  of  view  are,  Newman  reminds  us  not  a  little 
of  Schleiermacher,  in  the  emphasis  that  is  laid  upon  the 
invisible  and  eternal  realities  of  religion,  and  upon  the 
sharp  distinction  between  the  religious  and  the  worldly 
spirit.  It  was  Schleiermacher's  voice  that  rallied  the 
church  to  the  recognition  of  the  inner  realities  of  reli- 
gion. It  is  Newman's  voice  that  holds  our  attention  to 
the  consciousness  of  the  church  as  the  organ  of  the 
invisible  and  eternal. 

The  ethical  significance  of  faith  for  the  Christian  life 
is  another  point  of  value  in  Newman's  preaching,  closely 
allied  with  the  preceding.    To  show  that  it  is  natural  to 


296       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

believe,  that  it  is  better  to  be  credulous  even  than  to 
be  doubtful,  that  it  is  a  wrong  done  our  manhood  not 
to  believe,  to  vindicate  the  reasonableness  of  faith,  to 
justify  its  claims,  and  to  magnify  its  power,  was  one 
of  his  leading  aims.  He  was  doubtless  mistaken  in  his 
conception  of  the  object  of  faith,  but  this  did  not  fatally 
vitiate  his  conception  of  the  reality  and  power  of  faith. 
Substitute  for  the  church  the  proper  object  of  faith,  and 
Newman's  teaching  is  what  we  need  to-day.  He  lays 
much  stress  upon  the  naturalness  of  faith.  We  are  con- 
stitutionally predisposed  to  believe.  It  is  the  normal 
habit  of  mind,  and  the  sceptical  habit  is  abnormal. 
Better  believe  too  much  than  too  little.  Doubt  is  not 
only  a  weakness,  but  a  sin,  for  in  doubt  one  refuses  to 
follow  the  higher  impulses  of  his  nature.  It  is  a  re- 
freshing thing  to  come  into  contact  with  a  man  who 
discredits  the  sceptical  attitude  of  mind  in  an  age  that 
inclines  to  glory  in  it  as  if  it  were  the  mark  of  a  supe- 
rior order  of  intelligence.  Newman  constantly  presses 
upon  our  attention  the  fact  that  the  truths  of  religion 
are  not  revealed  primarily  to  the  reason  of  man,  but  to 
faith.  Faith  is  truly  natural,  as  being  an  inclination  to 
commit  ourselves  to  what  is  external  to  ourselves,  as 
object  of  trust,  and  yet  in  its  religious  aspect  it  is  the 
gift  of  God.  For  without  divine  help  the  soul  does  not 
commit  itself  to  invisible  spiritual  realities.  "  The  argu- 
ments for  religion  do  not  compel  any  one  to  believe, 
just  as  arguments  for  good  conduct  do  not  compel  any 
one  to  obey.  Obedience  is  a  consequence  of  willing  to 
obey,  and  faith  is  the  consequence  of  willing  to  believe. 
We  may  see  what  is  right,  whether  in  matters  of  faith 
or  obedience,  of  ourselves,  but  we  cannot  will  what  is 


THE   PREACHER  297 

right  without  the  grace  of  God."  ^  This  is  Newman's 
contribution  to  the  doctrine  of  faith.  Faith  is  an  ethical 
act.  It  is  willing  to  believe.  It  is  the  soul's  self-sur- 
render to  what  has  the  right  to  claim  its  allegiance. 
It  requires  no  act  of  will  to  accept  mathematical  demon- 
strations. But  to  accept  the  august  claims  of  religion 
does  require  an  act  of  will.  This  surely  has  a  modern 
note.  That  Newman  swung  away  from  the  rational- 
ism that  assumes  the  competency  of  the  speculative 
intellect,  to  deal  successfully  with  the  problems  of  re- 
ligion, indicates  that  he  was  in  line  with  a  better  and 
a  more  Christian  type  of  thinking  than  had  been  cur- 
rent. That  he  vindicates  the  self-committal  of  the  soul 
to  its  higher  intuitions  and  convictions  and  impulses 
and  instincts  and  longings  and  strivings  shows  that,  so 
far  forth,  he  was  in  line  with  the  modem  experimental 
school,  the  school  that  believes*  in  the  validating  power 
of  Christian  experience  in  vindicating  the  claims  of  re- 
ligion. It  is  this  validating  power  that  he  claims  for 
religious  experience.^  But  this  for  him  is  not  enough. 
He  adds  the  objective  authority  of  the  church.  Neither 
rational  nor  religious  experience  alone  is  sufficient  for 
faith.  It  must  have  a  dogmatic  basis.  It  must  rest 
upon  the  divine  authority  of  the  church.  But,  after  all, 
this  dogmatic  note  of  faith  does  not  fatally  vitiate  the 
main  point  of  his  teaching  with  respect  to  the  ethical 
significance  of  faith.  For  faith  is  still  the  soul's  willing- 
ness to  commit  itself  to  its  higher  spiritual  experiences, 
which  are  evoked  by  the  church,  and  to  which  the 
church,  as  the  voice  of  God,  summons  it. 

1  "  Discourses  to  Mixed  Congregations,"  IX,  X,  XI. 

2  «  Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,"  XXIII. 


298       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

The  intensity  of  its  emotional  and  spiritual  fervor 
is  an  element  of  great  interest  and  impressiveness  in 
Newman's  preaching.  All  of  his  writings,  particularly 
those  of  a  popular  and  controversial  character,  and 
above  all  his  sermons,  leave  the  impression  that  there  is 
behind  them  a  man  not  only  of  strong  convictions  and 
of  resolute  moral  purpose,  but  of  ardent  affectionateness 
and  of  tender  sympathies.  The  "  Apologia,"  with  all 
its  polemic  severity  and  biting  sarcasm,  supports  this 
impression.  Whatever  he  holds  to  be  true  he  holds 
with  constitutional  energy  and  advocates  with  passionate 
eagerness.  Traditionalist  and  dogmatist  of  an  extreme 
type  though  he  was,  he  stoutly  maintained  the  necessity 
of  an  ethical  and  spiritual  appropriation  of  the  truth. 
"  He  who  has  the  truth  within  him,  though  he  cannot 
evolve  it  out  of  his  heart  in  shape  and  proportion  for 
another's  inspection,  is  blessed  beyond  all  comparison 
above  him  who  has  much  to  say  and  says  what  is  true, 
but  says  it  not  from  himself,  but  by  rote,  and  could  say 
quite  as  well  just  the  reverse,  did  it  so  happen  that  he 
mistook  it  for  truth."  ^  The  sermons  furnish  abundant 
evidence  that  he  proclaimed  the  truth  "  from  himself  " 
and  not  "by  rote."  The  preaching  of  the  period  in 
which  he  was  connected  with  the  Anglican  church  bears 
witness  to  the  passionate  earnestness  with  which  he 
tried  to  make  the  truth  of  his  position  perfectly  real  to 
himself,  although  he  might  not  be  perfectly  sure  of  his 
ground.  And  his  subsequent  career  indicates  the  sin- 
cerity of  his  convictions  and  a  certain  apostohc  earnest- 
ness to  convince  others  of  the  truth  that  has  evidently 
become  a  great  power  in  his  own  soul.     With  all  his  in- 

1"  Sermons  on  Subjects  of  the  Day,"  XXIII,  p.  345. 


THE   PREACHER  299 

tellectual  subtlety  and  reserve  and  caution,  he  was  a  man 
of  intense  and  tender  feelings.  His  brother,  it  is  true, 
regarded  him  as  "  lacking  in  humility  and  tenderness," 
and  even  as  "  contemptuous  and  self -conceited."  It  is 
a  singularly  unfraternal  judgment,  but  the  basis  of  it 
is  perhaps  not  difficult  to  discover.  Newman  was  a 
dogmatician,  and  such  a  man,  as  already  suggested,  may 
be  harsh  and  severe  and  seemingly  arrogant  in  his 
enforcement  of  what  he  holds  for  truth.  We  find  some- 
thing of  this  in  his  sermons.  But  this  is  not  the  pre- 
vaihng  note.  He  loved  what  he  held  for  truth,  but  he 
did  not  cease  to  love  men.  There  was  the  heart  of  a 
man  behind  the  conscience  and  the  will  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical dogmatist,  and  at  times  it  burst  forth  as  in  a  sort  of 
wail  of  passionate  human  sympathy.  This  quality  in 
him  largely  accounts  for  the  interest  the  English  people 
have  continued  to  take  in  him.  His  appeal  to  Anglican 
friends  to  remember  him  in  time  to  come,  if  anything 
he  had  said  or  done  had  ever  made  them  take  an  interest 
in  him,  was  not  in  vain.  No  one  can  read  his  strong 
exclamatory  utterances,  full  of  pathos  and  fiery  zeal, 
full  of  apostrophe  and  appeal,  without  recognizing  the 
intensity  of  his  nature,  his  attachment  to  his  friends, 
and  his  love  for  his  church.  There  is  something  par- 
ticularly interesting  and  impressive  in  his  utterances  of 
passionate  adoration,  not  only  for  our  Lord,  but  for  His 
Mother.  They  suggest,  what  Robertson  felt  and  recog- 
nized, the  power  of  the  humanly  sympathetic  element 
in  the  religion  of  the  Roman  church.  It  is  a  human 
heart  that  brings  the  heart  of  God  near  to  us,  and  what 
wonder  that  the  Mother  of  our  Lord  has  mightily  moved 
the  imaginations  and  feelings  of  men,  especially  of  men 


30O       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

who,  like  Newman,  have  found  themselves  in  reaction 
against  the  technicalities  of  an  abstract  religion,  and 
who  have  felt  the  "all-corroding  power  of  intellectual 
scepticism."  Such  a  recoil  is  not  unnatural.  It  was  this 
early  recoil  of  the  emotional,  sympathetic,  and  imagina- 
tive element  in  Newman's  nature  from  the  coldness  of 
Protestantism  that  accounts  for  his  early  inclination  to 
adore  the  "  holy  Mother,"  and  for  the  attractiveness 
which  the  humanity  of  the  religion  of  the  Roman  church 
had  for  him. 

Newman's  preaching  has  interest  and  value  in  the 
evidence  it  furnishes  of  his  insight  into  the  human  soul. 
It  is  said  of  him  that  he  did  not  know  men.  This  is  the 
testimony  of  his  brother-in-law  in  the  "  Oxford  Reminis- 
cences." The  meaning  of  this  is  evident.  He  did  not 
know  men  on  the  lower  side  of  their  nature,  had  no 
handling  of  practical  affairs,  could  not  adjust  himself 
to  men's  weaknesses  and  perversities,  had  no  tact  for 
practical  leadership  and  no  skill  in  organizing  the  politi- 
cal elements  of  the  Oxford  movement.  But  this  in- 
volves no  lack  of  insight  into  the  hearts  of  men.  It 
suggests,  perhaps,  the  deeper  insight.  In  this  gift  of 
insight  he  surpasses  all  the  men  of  his  time.  In  a 
church  whose  leaders  are  obliged  to  study  and  to  know 
the  human  heart,  whose  casuistic  subtleties  are  often 
our  admiration,  a  church  that  is  in  many  respects  match- 
less in  its  guidance  of  men,  Newman  was  at  once  at 
home,  and  stood  at  the  front  as  a  shepherd  of  souls. 
He  was  a  matchless  priest.  His  intellectual  subtlety, 
his  skill  in  psychological  analysis,  his  insight  into 
human  motives,  his  vivid  imagination,  his  sympathetic 
earnestness,  his  study  of  himself  in  the  broodings  of  an 


THE  PREACHER  301 

introverted  life,  his  isolation  and  loneliness,  his  study  of 
the  records  of  human  passion  and  conflict  in  the  history 
of  the  church,  his  knowledge  of  dramatic  literature,  all 
fitted  him  to  interpret  the  human  soul,  and  to  become 
its  shepherd.  To  tell  men  what  they  knew  about  them- 
selves, but  to  make  the  knowledge  clearer  and  more 
significant ;  to  tell  them  what  they  did  not  know  and  did 
not  imagine,  and  to  surprise  and  confound  them  in  the 
telling ;  to  read  their  wants  and  feelings,  and  to  comfort 
them  in  the  very  reading  —  this  was  his  choice  gift,  and 
he  knew  it  when  he  made,  and  not  in  vain,  his  final  ap- 
peal for  remembrance  by  his  honest,  true-hearted  Eng- 
lish countrymen.  It  was  precisely  this  knowledge  of 
the  hearts  of  men  that  made  him  the  attractive  teacher 
that  he  was,  and  brought  the  young  men  of  Oxford,  as 
well  as  the  commonest  of  the  common  people,  to  St. 
Mary's,  and  has  left  its  traces  in  those  sermons  that  he 
poured  out  with  such  wealth  of  thought  and  feeUng  for 
fifteen  years  and  that  will  remain  a  literary  attraction 
for  other  generations. 

If  we  look  at  Newman's  preaching  from  the  point  of 
view  of  its  subject-matter,  tone,  and  method,  we  shall 
find  much  that  is  of  interest  and  value.  He  may  be 
classed  as  an  apologetic  preacher.  All  of  his  sermons 
bear  the  mark  of  the  apologist.  We  are  never  left  in 
doubt  about  his  doctrinal  opinions.  They  are  constantly 
emerging,  although  never  in  technical  form,  and  they  are 
never  defended  by  elaborate  argument.  Even  the  ser- 
mons that  have  a  definitely  ethical  and  evangelistic  char- 
acter have  a  doctrinal  basis  and  an  apologetic  interest. 
The  doctrinal  and  the  practical  are  in  his  view  identical, 
for  there  can  be  no  sound  practical  Christian  life  that 


302   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

is  not  grounded  in  the  truths  of  Christianity  as  inter- 
preted by  the  church.  It  is  with  considerable  effort 
that  we  get  at  the  theology  of  some  preachers.  In 
our  day  there  is  but  Httle  to  get  at.  But  we  have  no 
such  difficulty  with  Newman's  preaching.  We  readily 
gather  all  the  essential  features  of  his  theology,  as  we 
do  of  Schleiermacher's,  from  his  sermons.  He  is  content 
with  no  vague  statements  of  truth  that  is  held  in  solu- 
tion as  mystical  sentiment  and  feeling.  He  will  have 
the  right  conception,  and  he  proposes  to  lodge  it  in  the 
mind  of  the  hearer.  Sometimes  the  doctrinal  references 
are  incidental.  A  few  passages  stricken  out  would  leave 
a  sermon  that  would  prove  edifying  to  any  congregation. 
The  depth  and  compass  of  his  religious  life  rendered  it 
impossible  that  he  should  fail  to  deal  largely  with  truth 
that  is  common  to  the  entire  Christian  church.  But  we 
readily  discover  not  only  the  doctrinal  but  the  ecclesias- 
tical interest.  There  is  consequently  considerable  range 
and  variety  in  the  subject-matter  of  the  discourses,  and 
they  are  applied  to  a  great  variety  of  religious  interests. 
They  are  not  commonplace  themes.  If  they  are  famil- 
iar, they  are  discussed  with  such  freshness  and  individ- 
uality of  method  that  they  have  the  interest  of  novelty. 
Each  subject  is  discussed  in  a  free  and  unconventional 
manner,  and  in  a  way  appropriate  to  the  end  he  would 
realize.  There  is  therefore  nothing  stereotyped  or  repeti- 
tious, no  traversing  of  ground  previously  gone  over  in 
some  other  form.  Each  sermon  has  a  fresh  interest  of 
its  own,  and  we  find  the  old  freshness  lingering  about  it 
still,  whenever  we  go  back  to  it.  He  is  faithful  to  his 
own  teaching  that  the  preacher  should  always  have  a 
proposition  before  his  mind,  and  that  he  should  speak 


THE   PREACHER  303 

definitely  to  the  proposition,  although  it  may  not  be 
thrown  into  definite  form,  nor  be  defended  by  elabo- 
rate formal  argument.  He  is  quite  sure  to  find  the 
difficulties  of  the  subject  and  to  answer  objections. 
He  will  secure  the  greater  cogency  for  his  argument 
by  giving  his  assumed  antagonist  every  possible  advan- 
tage by  a  careful  statement  of  his  position.  Having 
given  him  this  advantage  by  putting  his  position  in  its 
most  favorable  light,  he  proceeds  with  his  undermining 
process.  His  reasoning  is  acute,  but  often  fanciful  and 
inconclusive.  It  is  after  the  dogmatic  method.  He  has 
his  premise  already  in  hand,  and  his  conclusion  is  con- 
tained in  it.  It  is  the  deductive  process.  Give  him  his 
premise,  and  it  will  be  difficult  to  meet  his  argument. 
The  reasoning  process  is  free  and  facile  and  in  the 
popular  manner  of  a  man  of  prevailingly  rhetorical 
instincts.  His  Scriptural  citations  are  copious,  and  are 
a  prominent  feature  in  his  development.  Citations  from 
secular  sources  are  excluded.  Ecclesiastical  citations 
are  often  colored  by  his  prepossessions,  and  Scrip- 
tural citations  are  not,  and  are  not  intended  to  be, 
exegetically  exact.  From  the  critical  point  of  view, 
they  are  sometimes  grotesque.  But  in  their  rhetorical 
or  poetic,  as  distinguished  from  their  didactic,  quality 
they  are  highly  interesting  and  impressive.  He  was 
apparently  entirely  ignorant  of  the  modern  science  of 
exegesis,  and  would  probably  have  regarded  it  as  a 
hindrance.  Doubtless  he  regards  his  citations  as  throw- 
ing light  upon  his  discussion,  but  they  do  it,  if  at  all, 
suggestively  and  by  an  allegorizing  accommodation.  The 
freedom,  not  to  say  abandon,  with  which  he  uses  his 
texts,  the  unexpected   themes  he  deduces   from   them, 


304       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

are  rather  shocking  to  the  critical  homiletic  mind,  and 
the  whole  discussion  hangs  as  loosely  about  the  theme 
as  the  theme  about  the  text.  But  the  rhetorical  impres- 
sion is  always  vivid.  The  preaching  of  the  Roman 
church  is  strong  in  its  imaginative  elements.  It  is 
stirring  preaching,  and  has,  according  to  its  kind,  an 
evangehstic  note.  In  this,  as  in  other  respects,  New- 
man was  from  the  first  a  Romanist  in  his  homiletic 
genius.  His  sermons  are  shaped  with  reference  to 
impression.  Their  very  dogmatism  has  an  element 
of  power.  Preaching  with  a  strong,  positive  dogmatic 
basis,  if  handled  with  rhetorical  skill,  is  always  force- 
ful. The  most  powerful  preaching  of  the  church  has 
been  of  this  sort.  Witness  Chrysostom,  Augustine, 
the  Cappadocians,  and  the  classical  French  preachers. 
It  is  not  in  harmony  with  the  tastes  of  our  time.  But 
it  is  pertinent  to  suggest,  that,  although  the  dogmatic 
method  will  not  avail,  it  would  not  injure  the  preach- 
ing of  our  day  if  it  had  under  it  a  more  consistent  and 
a  better-defined  theology.  Preaching  that  holds  its  the- 
ology in  solution,  that  never  pushes  it  into  definite  con- 
ception and  formal  statement,  will  lack  grip  and  force. 

The  structural  quality  of  Newman's  preaching  bears 
the  same  general  mark  of  freedom.  He  does  not  re- 
spect the  standard  methods  of  homiletic  order.  The 
rhetorical  rather  than  the  logical  interest  dominates  him 
in  the  ordering  of  his  thought.  He  early  chose  the  un- 
conventional style  and  never  changed  it  materially.  He 
preached,  moreover,  to  congregations  composed  largely 
of  educated  people,  who  exacted  but  little  upon  his 
method.  His  mental  productiveness,  the  fulness  of 
his  material,  the  energetic  grip  of  the  subject  upon  his 


THE   PREACHER  305 

mind,  the  intensity  with  which  it  moved  his  feelings, 
and  the  rush  of  his  style  naturally  resulted  in  riding 
down  all  questions  of  architectural  outline  as  a  sort  of 
hindrance  to  the  onflow  of  the  sermon,  and  he  satisfied 
himself  with  a  progressive  movement  that  had  no  defi- 
nitely marked  outHne  as  best  serving  his  purpose. 

Three  things  impress  us.  First,  the  directness  of  the 
address.  He  gets  to  work  promptly,  drives  straight  at 
his  mark,  and  closes  with  direct  appeal.  From  begin- 
ning to  end  a  definite  apologetic  and  ethical  interest  is 
manifest.  The  fulness  and  the  free  flow  of  the  thought 
is  another  feature.  No  loose  verbiage,  no  padding,  no 
hard  pressure  upon  the  homiletic  pump.  All  is  free 
and  afifluent,  —  keen  thinking  and  straight  but  facile 
speaking.  And  then  there  is  the  progressive  move- 
ment of  the  thought.  It  is  not  closely  articulated,  nor 
definitely  outlined,  but  it  moves  rapidly  onward  to  its 
goal.  He  has  mastered  his  thought  and  he  holds  it 
freely  in  its  relations.  In  the  university  sermons,  which 
of  all  his  discourses  are  the  most  elaborate,  he  marks 
the  progress  of  his  thought  by  numbered  divisions. 
They  are  not  homiletic  divisions,  marking  the  main 
steps  of  the  development,  but  numbered  paragraphs, 
marking  transitions  of  thought.  Within  these  num- 
bered paragraphs  we  may  sometimes,  but  not  always, 
easily  trace  the  outline  of  the  sermon  from  introduc- 
tion to  conclusion.  In  most  of  his  discourses  there  is 
no  careful  paragraphing  and  but  little  formal  division. 
The  "  Discourses  to  Mixed  Congregations  "  are  without 
texts,  and  they  show  that  without  texts  the  preacher  is 
likely  to  allow  himself  the  wider  freedom  in  the  move- 
ment of  his  thought.     The  sermon  entitled  "  God's  Will 

X 


306      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

the  End  of  Life,"  impressive  in  the  quality  of  its  thought, 
also  furnishes  a  good  illustration  of  his  free  structural 
method  and  of  his  affluent  rhetorical  style.  The  closing 
appeal  to  Christ  is  impressive  in  its  pathos  and  in  its 
emotional  fervor.  The  delineation  of  the  worldly  life 
and  especially  the  passage  relating  to  the  damnation  of 
Catholics  is  vividly  graphic.  The  title  is  only  indirectly 
the  subject  of  the  sermon,  but  suggests  the  background 
of  the  entire  discussion. 

Newman  is  best  known  to  the  general  public  as  a 
master  of  English  style,  and  the  attractiveness  of  his 
preaching  is  largely  conditioned  by  its  diction.  It  is 
a  simple  style,  sometimes  even  colloquially  direct  and 
familiar,  bringing  high  things  down  into  the  experi- 
ences of  common  life.  Yet  it  is  elevated  and  dignified, 
and  never  descends  below  the  proprieties  of  the  august 
subjects  discussed.  It  is  clear  and  exact,  speaking  di- 
rectly to  the  mind  and  conveying  thought  with  discrimi- 
nation. This  discriminating  quality,  indeed,  is  very 
notable,  and  secures  for  us  most  delicate  shadings  of 
thought  and  results  in  a  free  expansion  of  style.  The 
emotional  and  affectional  quality  of  his  utterance  secures 
for  it  a  certain  pathos  that  is  a  marked  quality  in  his 
style.  We  are  never  offended  when  he  addresses  us  as 
his  "dearest  children,"  but  are  rather  attracted  by  it. 
His  apostrophe  to  Christ  at  the  close  of  the  sermon 
entitled  "The  Mental  Sufferings  of  Our  Lord  in  His 
Passion  "  is  characterized  by  great  delicacy  of  feeling, 
and  illustrates  the  passionate  intensity  of  his  nature. 
Note  the  pathos  and  delicacy  of  his  last  utterance  from 
the  pulpit  of  St.  Mary's  to  his  Anglican  friends.  Note 
the  not  infrequent  appeals  to  the  Mother  of  our  Lord. 


THE  PREACHER  307 

The  gracefulness  of  his  style  is  generally  regarded  as 
its  most  characteristic  quality.  Matching  the  purity  of 
sentiment  and  feeling  and  the  refined  taste  that  mark 
the  whole  tone  of  the  sermon,  is  the  elegance  of  his 
vocabulary,  the  skilful  placing  of  words  and  marshal- 
ling of  clauses,  securing  for  his  sentences  a  rhythmic 
flow.  His  skilful  delineations,  whether  of  the  external 
experiences  of  life  or  of  mental  or  psychical  states,  are 
always  an  element  of  grace  in  his  diction.  But  the 
energy,  what  we  may  call  the  momentum,  the  rushing 
movement  of  his  style,  is  still  more  notable.  This  mo- 
mentum is  a  quality  of  great  intensity.  Note  the  rapid, 
sketchy  description  of  the  gay  and  active  scenes  of 
human  life  in  the  sermon  to  which  I  have  already  re- 
ferred, "God's  Will  the  End  of  Life."  "The  ways  are 
thronged,  carriage-way  and  pavement;  multitudes  are 
hurrying  to  and  fro,  each  on  his  own  errand,"  ^  etc. 
Note  his  description  of  Christ's  earthly  life.^  Read  his 
description  of  Dives.^  Recall  his  description  of  the 
Catholic  who  would  imitate  the  worldling,  and  read 
the  pathetic  appeal  in  the  conclusion  of  the  sermon. 
The  intensity  of  the  style  is  its  impressive  feature. 
The  rush  of  the  sentences  is  also  an  element  of  grace. 
For  his  effectiveness  as  a  preacher  Newman  was  not' 
at  all  dependent  upon  the  appointments  of  the  orator. 
There  was  a  slight  stoop  in  his  shoulders  as  he  stood  in 
the  pulpit,  and  he  never  disclosed  his  full  height.  He 
read  his  sermon  without  action  in  the  reading,  but  it 
was  not  without  the  animation  of  earnestness.  His 
eye   was   clear    and    penetrating,   and    his   voice   was 

1  "  Discourse  to  Mixed  Congregations,"  pp.  105-106. 

2  Ibid.y  pp.  1 09- 1 10.  3  ibid.^  pp.  1 1 2-1 14. 


308       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

musical,  and  this  compensated  for  other  defects.  His 
dress  was  that  of  the  Oxford  clergyman  of  his  day, 
which  was  sufficiently  distinctive  but  not  extreme.  He 
read  the  ordinary  service  rapidly,  but  in  the  Sunday  wor- 
ship he  was  more  deliberate ;  and  his  brother  charges  that 
the  service  of  worship  was  of  so  much  importance  in  his 
estimate  that  he  undervalued  the  sermon.  If  the  ser- 
mons left  us  are  a  proof  of  this,  it  was  an  undervaluation 
for  which  the  world  will  never  seriously  reproach  him. 

Mr.  Gladstone  has  left  on  record  his  impression  of 
Newman  as  a  preacher  in  the  following  words  :  "  There 
was  not  very  much  change  in  the  inflection  of  the  voice ; 
action  there  was  none.  His  sermons  were  read,  and  his 
eyes  were  always  bent  on  his  book ;  and  all  that,  you 
will  say,  is  against  efficacy  in  preaching.  Yes,  but  you 
must  take  the  man  as  a  whole,  and  there  was  a  stamp 
and  a  seal  upon  him  ;  there  was  a  solemn  sweetness  and 
music  in  the  tone ;  there  was  a  completeness  in  the 
figure,  taken  together  with  the  tone  and  with  the  man- 
ner, which  made  even  his  delivery,  such  as  I  have 
described  it,  and  though  exclusively  from  written  ser- 
mons, singularly  attractive."  ^ 

In  brief  summation,  then,  let  it  be  said  that  for  subtlety 
and  delicacy  of  thought,  for  skilful  dialectic,  for  exposi- 
tory grace,  for  seriousness  of  tone,  for  such  persuasive- 
ness of  inculcation  as  is  conditioned  by  strong  conviction 
and  intense  feeling,  and  for  all  the  elements  of  an  effec- 
tive style  of  public  address,  but  especially  for  freedom, 
flexibility,  and  momentum,  Newman's  sermons  are  a 
valuable  study  for  serious-minded  men  of  any  sect  or  of 
any  age. 

1  See  Hutton's  "  Cardinal  Newman,"  p.  87. 


CHAPTER   VII 
JAMES   BOWLING  MOZLEY 

I 

THE  MAN  AND  THE  THEOLOGIAN 

Among  the  Oxford  men  who  were  brought  into  con- 
nection with  Newman,  and  who  participated  in  the 
theological  and  ecclesiastical  discussions  of  the  Oxford 
controversy,  there  was  no  abler  nor  more  independent, 
honest,  or  judicious  thinker  than  Canon  Mozley.  In  his 
own  day  he  was  more  widely  known  as  a  theologian 
than  as  a  preacher.  With  all  his  intellectual  sugges- 
tiveness  and  extraordinary  moral  impressiveness,  he 
was  not  a  particularly  acceptable  preacher,  even  to  an 
Oxford  audience,  by  which  the  gifts  of  oratory  were  not 
and  are  not  held  in  very  high  esteem.  Yet  there  are 
elements  of  intellectual  and  moral  power  in  his  published 
sermons,  elements  that  seem  almost  to  be  more  effective 
in  the  printed  than  they  were  in  the  oral  form,  that, 
after  their  kind,  have  not  been  surpassed  by  anything 
in  homiletic  literature  that  has  been  given  to  the  public 
during  the  last  half-century.  They  lack  the  intensity 
and  literary  grace  of  Newman's  sermons,  and  are  some- 
what heavy  and  slow  in  movement ;  but  they  are  intel- 
lectually stronger  and,  from  the  ethical  point  of  view, 
more  impressive  than  any  that  ever  came  from  Newman's 

309 


310   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

pen.  Of  these  sermons,  the  London  Spectator  has 
said  that  "the  reading  of  them  would  be  enough  to 
change  the  whole  character  and  life  of  a  man."  It  is 
certainly  an  extraordinary  experience  for  a  preacher, 
and  an  extraordinary  test  of  him,  that  his  sermons  must 
be  known  through  the  press  before  his  value  as  a 
preacher  can  be  adequately  estimated.  This  is  the  test 
to  which  Mozley  has  been  subjected,  and  it  suggests 
somewhat  significantly  the  possibilities  of  loss  to  the 
world  if  the  manuscript  were  to  be  banished  from  the 
pulpit.  Unlike  Newman,  whose  intellectual  vivacity 
and  emotional  fervor  and  force  and  grace  of  literary  style 
fitted  him  after  his  fashion  for  the  mastery  of  assemblies, 
Mozley  reached  only  a  limited  circle  of  hearers.  But, 
like  Newman,  he  has  reached  and  influenced  a  wide 
circle  of  readers.  No  intelligent  and  cultivated  man 
who  becomes  familiar  with  these  virile  discourses  will, 
I  venture  to  say,  fail  to  receive  a  strong  moral  and 
mental  impression  from  them ;  and  no  preacher,  espe- 
cially, who  would  acquaint  himself  with  the  best  that  has 
been  spoken  in  the  modern  pulpit,  or  who  would  study 
intelHgently  the  elements  of  moral  power  in  modern 
preaching  and  would  avail  himself  of  the  strongest 
moral  incentive,  will  willingly  fail  to  acquaint  himself 
with  them. 

Mozley  was  born  in  1813  and  was  Newman's  junior 
by  twelve  years.  We  are  told  that  as  a  boy  he  disclosed, 
in  a  marked  degree,  just  those  qualities  for  which  he 
was  subsequently  distinguished.  He  was  strongly  indi- 
vidualistic, high-spirited,  and,  according  to  his  brother 
of  the  "  Oxford  Reminiscences,"  who  might  well  have 
told  us  more  about  him  and  less  about  himself,  quick- 


THE  MAN  AND  THE   THEOLOGIAN  311 

tempered.  This  strong  individuality  and  high  spirit  he 
disclosed  during  the  Oxford  controversy  in  his  resist- 
ance of  Newman's  influence  and  in  the  gradual  forma- 
tion of  his  own  independent  opinions,  but  he  curbed  his 
temper  and  secured  the  mastery  of  himself,  accounting 
as  a  dishonor  in  himself  and  disliking  in  others  any  loss 
of  it.  Like  Newman,  he  was  of  a  reflective  turn,  taking 
no  interest  in  the  games  of  his  school,  finding  "  think- 
ing his  diversion."  He  was  shy  and  sensitive  and  easily 
impressed.  Anything  that  was  striking  or  characteristic 
always  arrested  his  attention  and  became  a  basis  for 
reflection,  and,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  the  disclosure  of 
this  impressibility  became  one  of  his  most  interesting 
homiletic  peculiarities.  It  is  this  impressibility  of  the 
man  that  accounts  in  large  measure  for  Newman's 
strong  early  influence  over  him,  an  influence,  indeed, 
which  it  could  not  have  been  easy  for  any  one,  even  the 
most  independent,  to  resist.  In  his  maturer  years  he 
speaks  somewhat  depreciatingly  of  this  influence  of 
Newman  upon  his  literary  style.  Whatever  may  have 
been  Newman's  influence  upon  his  opinions,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  he  recognized  it  as  an  important  or  per- 
manent factor  in  his  life ;  and  whatever  may  have  been 
true  of  his  style,  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  it  was  but 
a  transient  influence,  and  it  is  equally  evident  that  he 
formed  his  opinions  independently  of  Newman's  domi- 
nation. It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  a  man  so  slow  in 
his  development  and  who  struggled  as  he  did  with  the 
barriers  of  language  should  have  been  by  contrast 
strongly  impressed  by  Newman's  facility  and  brilliancy 
of  literary  expression,  and  the  very  recognition  of  the 
influence  discloses  his  exacting  independence  of  pur- 


312   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

pose.  In  one  of  his  sermons,  entitled  "  The  Educating 
Power  of  Strong  Impressions,"  ^  there  is  a  very  interest- 
ing discussion  of  the  educative  influence  of  one  mind 
over  another.  It  is  not  impossible  that  he  may  have 
had  in  mind  Newman's  influence  over  others,  himself 
included.  At  any  rate,  in  reading  his  words,  one  natu- 
rally thinks  of  his  own  experiences  in  connection  with 
Newman.  The  point  he  makes  is  that  although  subjec- 
tion to  such  an  influence  makes  a  child  of  a  man,  yet  it 
is  necessary  to  the  development  of  his  manhood.  One 
**  may  be  so  much  under  the  influence  of  an  extraor- 
dinary and  superior  being,  that  it  may  prevent  him,  for 
the  time,  from  finding  out  his  own  power."  Yet  all  this 
may  be  necessary  to  one's  personal  development.  "  It 
is  only  the  common  truth,  and  a  very  familiar  truth,  of 
education."  Such  an  one  is  all  the  while  "collecting 
the  maturity  and  vigor  of  a  man."  This  was  eminently 
true  of  Mozley.  It  was  a  wonderfully  stimulating  at- 
mosphere in  which  he  was  placed,  and  the  large  and 
long  result  was  seen  in  the  virility  of  his  intellectual  and 
moral  manhood.  He  was  of  a  controversial  turn  of 
mind,  and  very  early  disclosed  his  readiness  for  discus- 
sion or  debate.  It  was  the  product,  not  only  of  a  comba- 
tive temperament,  but  of  his  intellectual  inquisitiveness, 
his  positiveness  of  conviction,  and  interest  in  and  devo- 
tion to  the  truth.  One  can  easily  conceive  of  him  as 
exhibiting  in  private  discussion  the  mental  pugnacity 
and  tenacity  of  the  typical  Englishman,  but  it  is  interest- 
ing to  observe  that,  although,  like  Canon  Liddon,  he 
seems  to  have  an  antagonist  in  mind  and  is  always  de- 
fending some  cherished  interest,  there  is  yet  in  his  pubHc 

1  "  Occasional  and  Parochial  Sermons,"  XXI. 


THE  MAN   AND   THE  THEOLOGIAN  313 

discussions  and  in  many  of  his  theological  essays  an  al- 
most entire  absence  of  the  polemic  temper  and  method. 
He  gripped  his  subjects  by  the  roots  and  his  mental 
movement  was  strong.  It  was  necessary  for  him  to 
get  at  the  bottom  of  things.  He  always  struck  for  the 
centre.  He  must  master  his  subject.  This  was  his  life 
habit.  He  was,  therefore,  relatively  slow  in  his  move- 
ment and  developed  somewhat  late  into  the  maturity  of 
his  powers.  One  can  easily  imagine  the  powerful  influ- 
ence Dr.  Arnold  would  have  had  for  so  slow  but  respon- 
sive a  nature.  It  is  certain  that  Mozley  always  had  the 
highest  admiration  for  Arnold,  Broad  churchman  though 
Arnold  was.  But  he  failed  to  enter  Rugby  as  a  student 
because  Arnold  had  fixed  the  age  limit  for  entrance  at 
fifteen,  which  young  Mozley  had  already  passed.  It  is 
interesting  to  conjecture  what  Arnold  at  that  time  of 
intense  intellectual  activity  might  have  done  with  such 
strong  timber.  It  is  conceivable  that  Newman  might 
have  found  him  a  formidable  antagonist.  But  as  for 
Mozley,  he  seems  always  to  have  regarded  his  rejection 
at  Rugby  as  special  good  fortune,  since  he  made  better 
head  in  his  studies  alone  and  thus  developed  his  own 
individuaUty  to  better  advantage.  His  brother  expresses 
the  opinion  that  Arnold's  exacting  standard  might  have 
embarrassed  one  of  his  slow  habit  of  mind,  and  that  the 
two  men  were  too  much  alike  in  their  intellectual  inde- 
pendence and  fiery  and  pugnacious  temper  to  get  on 
together.  Whatever  may  be  the  truth  of  this,  it  is  clear 
enough  that  the  two  following  years  of  private  study 
were  fruitful  years. 

In  1830,  three  years  before  Newman  began  the  Angli- 
can agitation,  and  three  years  after  he  had  taken  St. 


314   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

Mary's,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  Mozley  entered  Oriel 
College,  where  Newman  had  a  tutorship  and  his  brother 
a  fellowship,  and  where  the  Anglican  movement  found 
its  centre.  His  brother's  influence,  his  own  thoughtful- 
ness  and  modesty,  the  delicacy,  the  deference,  and  eager 
inquisitiveness  with  which  he  listened  to  the  vigorous 
discussions  that  were  going  on  about  him,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  independence  and  positiveness  of  his  own 
opinions,  secured  for  him  at  once  a  favorable  introduc- 
tion to  the  society  and  friendship  of  the  older  Oriel 
magnates.  He  was  cordially  welcomed  by  Newman, 
Pusey,  and  Keble,  the  latter  having  associations  with 
Oriel,  and  he  soon  entered  into  the  discussion  of  ques- 
tions that  were  already  stirring  Oxford  students.  Some 
of  the  then  important  questions  were  the  apostolicity 
and  catholicity  of  the  Anglican  church,  the  claims  of 
the  Roman  church,  baptismal  regeneration,  the  real 
presence,  and  the  relation  of  the  church  and  state, 
questions  all  of  which  were  subsequently  discussed  in 
**  Tracts  for  the  Times."  On  account  of  Mozley's  in- 
terest in  these  questions  he  did  not  reach  so  high  a  rank 
in  his  college  studies  proper  as  he  otherwise  might  have 
done.  He  graduated  in  1834,  the  year  following  the 
formal  opening  of  the  Oxford  controversy.  It  was  a 
year  of  immense  intellectual  activity  and  of  intense  feel- 
ing. The  new  apostles  vied  with  each  other  in  the 
voluminousness  of  their  publications  in  the  form  of 
tracts,  sermons,  and  essays,  and  in  the  enthusiasm  of 
their  active  propagandism.  Although  but  twenty-one 
years  of  age,  Mozley  was  already  a  participant  in  these 
agitations.  At  that  time  there  was  no  proper  provision 
at  Oxford  for  the  training  of  men  for  the  ministry.     It 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  THEOLOGIAN     315 

was  the  Oxford  method,  and  always  has  been  too 
largely,  to  train  individual  men  under  tutors  without  the 
stimulus  of  associate  life.  The  patrons  of  the  new 
movement  saw  the  need  of  a  theological  school.  Ac- 
cordingly Newman  and  Pusey  rented  a  house  near 
Christ  Church  and  fitted  it  up  as  a  sort  of  family  school, 
where  graduates  might  board  and  associate  themselves 
in  theological  study.  Mozley  became  one  of  the  student 
inmates  of  this  school  and  remained  there  two  years 
under  the  tutorship  of  these  two  men,  Pusey,  however, 
bearing  the  chief  burden  of  the  teaching ;  and  when,  at 
the  end  of  the  two  years,  the  school  was  given  up,  Pusey 
took  the  students  to  his  own  home.  Mozley  remained 
with  Pusey  till  1840,  when  he  was  appointed  to  a  fellow- 
ship in  Magdalen  College.  For  six  years  he  had  been 
associated  with  Oriel  men,  who  were  the  prime  movers 
in  the  controversy.  He  had  been  in  the  very  storm 
centre  of  the  movement,  in  a  way  allied  with  it  through 
his  High  Church  sympathies,  although  apparently  not 
closely  allied  with  it  or  in  complete  sympathy  with  it. 
His  election  to  Magdalen  terminated  his  immediate 
relation  with  the  agitators.  During  all  these  years  he 
had  been  developing  an  independent  position,  and  he  at 
last  dropped  away  from  them,  his  writings  disclosing  at 
the  end  a  break  with  them.  During  those  student  days, 
a  year  after  his  graduation  from  Oriel,  he  secured  the 
prize  for  an  essay  on  "The  Influence  of  the  Ancient 
Oracles  on  Public  Morals  and  Life,"  which  is  pro- 
nounced by  his  brother  a  remarkable  production  for  a 
man  of  his  age.  He  held  the  Magdalen  fellowship  for 
sixteen  years,  or  until  the  year  1856.  In  the  year  1838, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  he  was  ordained  as  deacon 


3l6      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

and  six  years  later  was  ordained  as  priest.  During  all 
these  years,  from  the  time  of  his  entrance  upon  his  theo- 
logical studies,  he  was  not  only  associated  with  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  High  Church  branch  of  the  Anglican 
communion,  but  was  a  contributor  to  the  British  Critic^ 
which  Newman  had  edited  for  two  years,  and  which  was, 
in  a  sort,  the  organ  of  the  Oxford  movement. 

When  in  1845  the  break  came  and  Newman  went  over 
to  the  Roman  church,  Mozley  stood  by  Anglicanism 
and  was  in  a  sort  associated  with  the  men  who  initiated 
the  ritualistic  movement  which  followed  the  break-up 
under  Newman.  But  while  affiliated  with  them,  he  was 
recognized  as  occupying  an  independent  position.  He 
gradually  became  alienated  from  this  party  and  ulti- 
mately occupied  almost  as  independent  a  position,  as  a 
theological  thinker,  as  Robertson,  although  of  course  a 
very  different  position.  At  the  time  of  the  disruption, 
the  British  Critic  ceased  to  exist,  and  Mozley  started  the 
Christian  Remembrancer^  to  which  he  was  one  of  the 
most  weighty  contributors  for  the  next  ten  years,  or  until 
1856,  when  he  left  Oxford.  In  this  periodical  appeared 
some  of  his  most  interesting  and  able  essays,  notably  the 
article  in  which  he  made  a  vigorous  onset  upon  Martin 
Luther,  and  his  exceedingly  able  essay  on  the  Book  of 
Job. 

On  leaving  Oxford  he  took  charge  of  the  parish  of 
Old  Shoreham,  in  Sussex  County,  near  Brighton.  It  is 
interesting  to  think  of  Mozley  as  so  near  the  scene  of 
Robertson's  brilliant,  ministry,  and  to  recall  that  while 
Robertson,  who  had  died  three  years  before  the  entrance 
upon  this  Old  Shoreham  ministry,  was  becoming  widely 
known  through  the  EngUsh  press  as  the  greatest  of 


THE  MAN   AND   THE   THEOLOGIAN  317 

English  preachers,  this  quiet  man  was  discharging  the 
duties  of  a  parish  minister  near  at  hand  and  was  con- 
tinuing those  studies  which  should  become  tributary  to 
his  reputation  as  the  ablest  theological  thinker  in  the 
Anglican  church.  Here  at  Old  Shoreham  most  of  the 
sermons  contained  in  the  volume  entitled  "  Occasional 
and  Parochial  Sermons  "  were  preached.  The  volume 
was  published  in  1879,  the  year  after  his  death,  and 
without  the  revising  touches  of  his  own  hand,  which,  in 
the  case  of  some  of  them,  may  account  for  a  certain 
lack  of  literary  finish.  Most  of  them  bear  evidence  of 
having  been  prepared  in  the  course  of  ordinary,  parish 
work  and  are  of  a  practical  and  helpful  character. 

By  Mr.  Gladstone's  recommendation  he  was,  in  1869, 
appointed  Canon  of  Worcester,  and  in  1871  was  made 
"  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity  "  at  Oxford,  the  position 
that  had  been  filled  by  Dr.  Hampden,  whose  appoint- 
ment had  been  so  strenuously  opposed  by  Newman  and 
his  party.  At  the  same  time  he  was  appointed  Canon 
of  Christ  Church  and  select  preacher  to  the  university, 
holding  still  his  living  at  Old  Shoreham.  The  pub- 
lication, in  1858,  not  long  after  going  to  Old  Shoreham, 
of  his  essay  on  the  "  Augustinian  Doctrine  of  Predesti- 
nation," in  which  he  disclosed  the  increasing  indepen- 
dence of  his  theological  position,  widened  the  breach 
between  him  and  the  high  Anglicans.  His  article,  sub- 
sequently, on  the  baptismal  controversy  had  a  like  result. 
In  1865  he  gave  the  Bampton  Lectures  on  ''Miracles," 
in  which  he  commits  himself  to  the  position  that  Chris- 
tianity cannot  be  successfully  defended  and  vindicated 
apart  from  the  external  evidence  of  miracles.  It  is  an 
able  presentation  of  the  old  argument,  but  contains  noth- 


3l8       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

ing  that  is  new  and  is  not  by  any  means  conclusive. 
The  published  result  of  his  work  as  professor  of  divinity 
from  1 87 1  to  1876  appears  only  in  his  university  sermons, 
issued  in  1876,  the  last  sermon  in  the  volume  being  the 
last  he  ever  preached,  and  in  the  volume  entitled  "  Rul- 
ing Ideas  in  Early  Ages,"  compiled  from  his  lectures 
to  students  in  divinity,  mostly  Oxford  tutors,  a  work 
which,  although  superseded  by  a  more  advanced  stage  of 
thought,  is  still  of  great  value  for  the  breadth  and  origi- 
nality and  clearness  and  force  of  its  treatment  of  some 
of  the  difficult  problems  of  Old  Testament  ethics. 

Canon  Mozley  was  one  of  the  ablest  and  best-trained 
theologians  in  the  Anglican  church.  As  an  original 
and  forceful  thinker,  it  is  doubtful  if  any  man  of  his  day 
was  his  superior.  All  of  his  theological  writings,  and 
his  sermons  not  the  less,  bear  the  mark  of  a  man  who  is 
accustomed  to  get  at  the  roots  of  things,  and  who  by 
years  of  patient,  manly  effort  has  attained  to  master- 
ship in  his  thinking.  We  may  not  accept  altogether 
the  point  of  view  from  which  he  looks  at  Christianity. 
We  may  not  accept  all  of  his  estimates  of  its  proper 
defences.  We  may  not  agree  with  all  of  his  fundamental 
positions,  or  with  all  of  his  methods  and  conclusions. 
But  of  the  virility  of  his  thinking,  and  in  general  of  its 
sanity  and  of  his  power  of  lucid  and  cogent  statement, 
there  can  be  no  question.  He  has  been  compared  with 
Bishop  Butler,  with  whom  in  his  equipment  he  has 
much  in  common,  of  whom  he  was  a  thorough  student, 
mastering,  as  Newman  did,  Butler's  doctrine  of  prob- 
ability, and  using  it  in  his  discussions  in  a  very  effec- 
tive way,  although  in  a  way  quite  different  from 
Newman.     In  the  strength,  thoroughness,  and  steadiness 


THE  MAN  AND  THE  THEOLOGIAN     319 

of  his  mental  grasp  he  is  like  Butler,  but  in  literary 
accomplishments  he  bears  the  mark  of  the  better  modern 
culture,  and  is  greatly  Butler's  superior.  In  the  early 
years  of  his  student  life,  when  under  Newman's  in- 
fluence, especially  his  literary  influence,  his  style  was 
much  more  rhetorical  than  in  later  years.  But  as 
Newman's  influence  in  this  and  other  respects  declined, 
his  style  acquired  that  mental  sobriety  and  solidity,  and 
that  increasing  lucidity  and  forcefulness,  which  so  strongly 
characterize  it  as  an  expository  style.  He  had  noth- 
ing of  Newman's  brilliancy,  productiveness,  and  facility 
in  turning  off  work.  He  was  slow,  but  he  was  strong 
in  the  movement  of  his  thought.  He  felt  his  way 
into  the  interior  of  his  subject,  and  he  needed  time. 
He  went  at  his  work  deliberately  and  with  mental  poise, 
and  with  the  tenacity  of  a  true  Englishman.  He  felt 
within  him  the  movings  of  power,  and  with  self-reliant, 
steadfast  purpose  to  make  it  felt  he  bided  his  time. 
He  was  not  anxious  for  intellectual  domination,  as  New- 
man apparently  was.  He  had  less  of  the  passion  of  the 
advocate.  He  was  willing  to  let  the  truth  do  its  own 
work,  when  once  he  had  interpreted  it  and  laid  bare  its 
moral  demands.  But  he  had  a  passion  for  mastering 
intellectual  obstacles.  He  Hked  to  clear  away  difficulties 
that  gather  about  an  important  problem.  He  loved  the 
truth  because  it  is  truth.  He  liked  indeed  the  agitation 
of  conflict  and  liked  to  carry  his  point.  But  he  coveted 
still  more  the  joy  of  communication  and  the  feeling  of 
strength  that  comes  from  conscious  mental  and  moral 
alliance  with  the  truth.  Difficulties  only  stimulated  his 
purpose.  It  is  said  of  him  that  in  his  early  student  days 
he  struggled  with  defective  power  of  expression.     He 


320       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

had  a  hesitating  manner  of  speaking.  There  was  a 
struggle  of  mind  with  the  intractable  barrier  of  language  ; 
and  he  himself  expressed  gratification  that  he  had  failed 
to  enter  Rugby,  where  Dr.  Arnold's  exacting  standard 
of  classical  expression  would  have  kept  him  at  a  dis- 
advantage. His  thought  was  larger  than  his  vocabulary. 
His  mental  activity  was  ahead  of  his  linguistic.  It  is 
said  of  him  that  '*no  man  ever  started  with  a  less  prom- 
ising outfit  of  fluency  and  faciUty  of  language,  or  of 
the  power  of  readily  disentangling  and  ordering  his 
thought."  The  issue  left  no  trace  of  this  behind.  No 
one  would  imagine  such  a  struggle.  His  speech  bears 
no  such  scars'  of  battle.  He  was  bent  upon  the  realiza- 
tion of  clear,  comprehensive,  orderly  thought,  and  he 
was  exacting  with  himself.  He  was  intent  upon  getting 
at  the  heart  of  all  subjects  investigated,  and  this  slow- 
ness in  clearing  up  a  subject  and  his  deliberation  and 
fastidiousness  with  respect  to  his  diction  embarrassed 
him.  But  it  also  rallied  him,  and  it  evoked  all  that  was 
in  him.  The  result  was  a  mastery  of  thought  and  an 
exactness  and  clearness  and  strength  of  speech  that  are 
more  than  an  offset  for  the  difficulties  he  encountered ; 
and  one  can  hardly  fail  to  see  that  this  patient,  self- 
poised  mental  habit  saved  him  from  one-sidedness  and 
kept  the  balance  of  his  judgment  and  made  him  the 
safer  guide.  We  see  here  the  immense  value  of  thorough 
mental  training.  If  Mozley  had  produced  with  greater 
facility,  it  might  have  proved,  as  in  the  case  of  Newman 
it  did  prove,  not  a  "  fatal,"  but  an  unfriendly  facility. 
It  was  here  upon  this  inner  battle-ground  that  he  won 
his  mental  and  moral  victories,  and  the  rest  followed  in 
due  order.     Perhaps  no  preacher  of  his  day  showed  what 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    32 1 

would  seem  to  the  ordinary  hearer  or  reader  an  easier 
handling  of  the  main  thought  of  the  discourse. 

II 

THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER 

What  can  a  man  like  Canon  Mozley,  a  lifelong  stu- 
dent, a  trained  theologian,  associating  chiefly  with 
scholars,  a  university  teacher  and  preacher  and  an 
Oxford  man  at  that,  living  largely  in  the  realm  of  ab- 
stract thought,  and  during  most  of  his  life  remote  from 
the  people,  — what  can  such  a  man  do  for  the  untrained 
hearer  or  reader  ?  What  especially  can  he  do  for  men 
who  must  preach  to  the  uninstructed  and  untrained  so- 
called  common  people  ?  Let  us  see.  In  discussing 
some  of  the  salient  qualities  of  Mozley's  preaching  its 
helpfulness  will  perhaps  appear. 

I.  The  apologetic  note  will  be  recognized  at  once, 
even  by  the  most  uninstructed  reader.  It  is  true  that 
the  interest  of  the  advocate  is  not  particularly  apparent. 
It  is  the  ethical  rather  than  the  apologetic  interest  that 
seems  to  predominate.  But  in  the  background  there 
always  lurks  the  defender  of  the  truth.  To  him  Chris- 
tianity is  truth  that  has  been  placed  as  a  sacred  deposit 
in  the  hands  of  the  church,  and  it  is  the  preacher's  voca- 
tion to  defend  it  against  attack  and  to  combat  the  oppos- 
ing error.  His  attitude  was  therefore  the  necessity  of 
his  conception  of  Christianity  and  of  the  church,  and 
this  must  always  be  the  High  churchman's  position. 
Mozley's  writings  are  in  general  of  the  apologetic  sort. 
His  bent  was  in  that  line,  his  training  followed  his  bent. 


322   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

his  circumstances  largely  conditioned  his  training,  and  his 
interest  in  the  work  of  defence  shows  how  strong  was 
the  incentive.  But  his  method  somewhat  obscured  the 
apologetic  aim  of  the  sermon,  and  this  is  precisely  the 
stress-point  of  value  in  it.  He  always  selects  some  im- 
portant truth  or  principle  for  interpretation,  defence,  and 
application.  To  interpret  it  to  the  intelligence  of  his 
hearers  and  to  carry  it  home  to  their  moral  sense  is  his 
aim.  But  his  method  is  his  own,  and  it  is  an  interesting 
study. 

This  method  is  in  general  the  non-dogmatic  method. 
It  would  not  be  correct  to  classify  him  as  a  dogmatic 
preacher  in  the  full  formal  sense  of  that  term.  He  is 
not  a  defender  of  the  teachings  of  the  church,  as  in  a 
former  period  Tillotson,  South,  and  Barrow  were.  He 
had  not  the  aggressive  dogmatic  impulse  that  Newman 
had,  nor  does  he  illustrate  the  dogmatic  temper  or 
method  as  Liddon  does.  He  has  no  dogmatic  or  even 
doctrinal  sermons  in  the  formal  technical  sense.  It  is 
his  custom  rather  to  take  an  important  truth,  —  and  he 
has  no  interest  in  truths  that  are  not  of  fundamental 
importance,  —  it  may  be  a  truth  of  natural  rehgion,  but 
more  commonly  a  distinctively  Christian  truth,  without 
any  reference  to  its  definition  or  formulation  by  church 
authority,  and  without  reference  to  its  relation  to  any 
other  formulated  truth ;  and  he  proceeds  to  expound  it 
by  itself,  looking  into  its  inner  elements,  and  especially 
its  psychical  and  ethical  elements.  It  is  evident  that  to 
him  as  a  preacher  the  moral  evidences  for  the  truth 
were  practically  supreme,  and  that  the  moral  value  of  the 
truth  was  its  supreme  value.  This  is  an  interesting  fact, 
especially  when  we  recall  his  essentially  High  Church 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER     323 

dogmatic  attitude  with  respect  to  the  truth.  For  a  High 
churchman  must  be  a  believer  in  the  dogmatic  principle, 
and  must  react  against  the  liberalism  that  denies  this 
principle  and  lays  supreme  stress  upon  the  subjective 
principle.  As  a  theologian,  trained  in  the  dogmatic 
school,  he  held  to  the  importance  for  the  church  of  the 
objective  evidences,  and  of  church  authority  in  the  de- 
fence of  Christianity.  He  is  a  stalwart  defender  of  the 
evidential  value  of  prophecy  and  miracle  in  Christian 
apologetics.  He  held,  as  a  High  churchman,  positive 
opinions  with  respect  to  the  apostoHc  authority  of  the 
church  in  fixing  dogma.  But  the  notable  thing  is  that 
we  find  almost  nothing  of  all  this  in  his  sermons.  It  is 
not  at  all  the  dogmatic  method  of  Newman  or  even  of 
Liddon.  Holding  stoutly  to  the  objective  defences 
of  truth,  he  still  in  his  preaching  dealt  mostly  with  the 
subjective,  and  the  moral  evidences,  as  already  inti- 
mated, most  deeply  interested  him.  In  this  he  carried 
beyond  Butler  himself  his  defence  of  religion,  as  belong- 
ing to  the  moral  constitution  of  man,  and  it  is  not  the 
authority  of  the  church  that  validates  the  truth,  but  the 
witness  of  the  human  soul  and  especially  of  the  moral 
nature  to  its  reality  and  power.  This  shows  that  Moz- 
ley,  with  his  largeness  of  vision,  his  responsiveness  to 
strong  impressions,  and  especially  with  his  strong  ethi- 
cal sense,  was  more  completely  under  modern  influences 
than  he  may  have  realized,  and  that,  as  a  religious 
teacher,  he  had  a  clear  conception  of  the  needs  of  the 
men  of  his  time.  The  significance  of  this  will  become 
the  more  apparent  if  we  look  somewhat  into  his  method 
of  treatment  in  the  two  volumes  of  sermons.  We  might 
assume   at   the   outset   that  in  the  parochial  sermons. 


324     REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

which  were  preached  to  an  ordinary  worshipping  con- 
gregation, he  would  follow  the  non-dogmatic  method, 
and  make  but  little  appeal  to  the  authority  of  the  church, 
but  would  try  to  adapt  his  teachings  to  the  simple,  prac- 
tical needs  of  his  hearers.  And  such  we  find  to  be 
the  case.  But  if  we  examine  the  university  sermons, 
preached  to  audiences  of  the  highest  intelligence  and 
culture,  whose  allegiance  to  the  authority  of  the  church 
it  would  be  of  supreme  importance  to  hold,  as  Newman 
plainly  saw,  we  find  the  same  non-dogmatic  method. 
These  sermons  deal  with  truths  of  primal  importance, 
and  the  discussion  is  always  strong  and  convincing.  A 
casual  glance  at  the  titles  will  disclose  the  fact  that  they 
are  mostly  ethical  sermons,  but  in  every  case  we  have 
an  ethical  defence  of  some  strong  truth. 

In  his  discussion  of  the  Roman  Council  of  1870,  that 
confirmed  the  papal  syllabus  of  the  previous  year,  we 
might  expect  a  doctrinal  sermon,  exposing  the  errors  of 
Romanism  as  contained  in  the  action  of  the  council. 
But  instead  we  have  a  strongly  moral  argument  against 
the  right  of  the  church,  as  a  spiritual  body,  to  coerce 
the  conscience.  It  is  a  defence  from  the  moral  point 
of  view  of  the  Protestant  doctrine  of  the  right  of  private 
judgment  against  which  Newman  and  his  associates  so 
vigorously  contended.  In  his  sermon  on  the  "  Pharisees," 
we  have  not  so  much  a  presentation  of  the  Scripture 
representations  concerning  them,  as  we  are  led  to  expect, 
or  a  doctrinal  argument  against  their  errors,  as  a  psy- 
chological and  ethical  analysis  of  the  Pharisaic  type  of 
character. 

In  the  sermon  on  "  Eternal  Life "  we  have,  on  the 
one  hand,  a  criticism  of  the  ethics  of  Compte,  and  on 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    325 

the  other,  a  discussion  of  the  value  of  probable  evidence, 
as  related  to  the  problems  of  religion,  and  not  an  argu- 
ment for  immortality  at  all,  save  in  an  indirect  and  inci- 
dental way.  In  his  "  Reversal  of  Human  Judgment," 
the  most  masterful  of  all  his  discourses,  we  have  no 
discussion  of  the  doctrine  of  the  final  judgment,  but 
rather  an  analysis  of  the  various  sources  of  error  in  the 
moral  judgments  of  men  which  may  well  furnish  ground 
for  ultimate  reversal.  In  his  discussion  of  the  "  Work 
of  the  Spirit"  he  deals  not  with  the  church  doctrine, 
nor  even  with  the  Biblical  doctrine,  but  wholly  with 
subjective  considerations,  in  which  he  shows  that  a 
spiritual  religion  must  have  its  seat  in  the  affections, 
rather  than  in  the  conscience,  because  it  has  its  source 
in  the  Spirit  of  God.  In  his  discourse  on  the  **  Atone- 
ment" we  have  no  doctrinal  discussion,  but  a  single 
ethical  phase  of  the  atonement  which  he  regards  as 
central  and  characteristic  ;  and  having  discussed  this,  he 
leaves  the  subject  to  make  its  own  moral  impression. 
In  the  "Ascension,"  instead  of  discussing  the  fact  or 
its  doctrinal  import,  he  presents  but  a  single  inferential 
suggestion  from  it,  viz.  the  influence  of  the  thought  of 
the  enthroning  of  the  divine  Man  upon  the  soul's  rever- 
ence and  upon  the  conduct  of  life.  All  this  indicates  that 
it  was  his  chosen  method  to  present  the  practical  applica- 
tory  aspects  of  the  subjects  discussed.  As  by  native  bent 
and  by  fixed  habit,  he  always  looked  upon  the  ethical 
aspects  of  doctrine.  And  in  this  we  have  a  great  ad- 
vance upon  the  apologetic  preaching  of  the  Anglican 
church. 

Another  distinctive  mark  of  value  is  the  affirmative  or 
declarative  method  of  presentation.    Of  elaborate  formal 


326   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

argument  there  is  none.  For  the  negative  method  of 
fighting  up  truth  by  fighting  down  error,  he  had  no 
incHnation.  From  a  man  of  his  pugnacious  temper, 
we  might  expect  the  theological  polemic  and  occasion- 
ally the  philippic.  But  the  method  is  not  only  non- 
dogmatic,  but  non-polemical.  The  nearest  approach  to 
a  polemical  sermon  in  the  university  discourses  is  the 
one  on  the  Roman  council.  It  combats  the  Vatican's 
claim  to  the  right  to  use  force  in  matters  of  conscience. 
The  opportunity  might  seem  a  tempting  one  to  a  man 
of  Mozley's  dialectical  abiHty  to  enter  upon  an  elabo- 
rate and  crushing  argument  in  refutation  of  that  claim. 
The  time  was  favorable.  There  was  a  great  stir  in  the 
ecclesiastical  and  political  world  over  the  publication  of 
the  syllabus  and  the  subsequent  decree  of  the  council. 
In  Great  Britain  there  was  special  interest  in  the  bear- 
ing of  the  decree  upon  the  problem  of  civil  allegiance, 
which  stirred  Mr.  Gladstone  to  enter  the  lists  against 
the  Vatican.  It  would  seem  to  have  been  the  favor- 
able moment  to  strike  an  effective  blow  against  the 
Roman  church  in  defence  of  the  rights  of  conscience, 
and  Mozley  was  the  man  to  do  it.  But  we  have  noth- 
ing of  this  sort.  Throughout  the  sermon  he  shows  more 
interest  in  estabhshing  the  positive  principle  suggested 
by  his  text,  John  xviii.  36,  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of  this 
world,"  than  in  combating  the  error  that  had  been 
enunciated  by  the  Roman  council.  Mozley  had  learned 
the  wiser  method.  One  thinks  of  Robertson's  positive 
method  of  deahng  with  contested  questions.  There  may 
be  no  ground  for  surmising  that  Mozley  may  have  felt 
Robertson's  influence  in  this  regard,  and  yet  it  is  possi- 
ble.    It  is  at  all  events  not  improbable  that  both  men 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    327 

may  have  learned  the  lesson  of  method  from  the  same 
sources.  One  surmises  that  they  both  brought  a  salu- 
tary lesson  from  the  Anglican  controversy  of  other 
years.  At  any  rate  one  finds  a  modern  note  of  great 
value  in  this  straightforward,  positive,  clear,  arid  cogent 
method  of  stating  the  truth,  and  in  this  appeal  to  the 
hearers'  moral  sense. 

There  were  two  qualities  in  Mozley  that  would  natu- 
rally lead  him  away  from  the  polemical  method.  One 
was  the  tolerance  of  his  spirit,  and  the  non-partisan 
character  of  his  thinking.  It  has  been  the  misfortune 
of  the  church  that  its  apologetic  preaching  has  been  too 
largely  polemical.  We  have  historic  illustration  of  the 
weakness  of  the  method.  The  partisan  preaching  of 
Robert  South  is  an  example.  Such  men  seem  to  care 
quite  as  much  to  tear  down  the  work  of  their  opponents, 
whom  they  come  to  regard  as  personal  enemies,  and  to 
cripple  their  influence,  as  to  establish  the  truth  and  to 
bring  men  under  its  power.  This  is  the  curse  of  the 
partisan  divisions  of  the  church.  When  doctrinal  errors 
are  associated  with  moral  evils,  especially  public  and 
social  evils,  the  polemic  may  be  necessary,  as  seems  to 
have  been  the  case  in  the  time  of  Augustine.  In  our 
day  such  preaching  would  be  impossible.  But  in  an 
earlier  age  it  seemed  necessary  to  combat  moral  corrup- 
tions that  were  associated  with  doctrinal  errors.  Luther's 
preaching  was  largely  polemical.  But  it  was  not  simply 
false  doctrine  that  awakened  his  wrath,  but  the  associate 
corruptions  of  moral  life.  In  our  own  day,  however, 
errors  of  thought  are  not  so  closely  allied  with  moral 
corruption,  and  the  best  tendencies  of  the  age  are  hos- 
tile to  the  polemical  spirit  and  method.     Much  of  our 


328       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

modern  tolerance  may  indeed  be  indifference  to  the 
truth.  The  agnostic  spirit  may  promote  such  indiffer- 
ence. The  man  who  despairs  of  arriving  at  positive  truth 
will  dislike  polemics  for  the  reason  that,  in  his  opinion, 
one  side  of  a  question  may  have  as  much  truth  in  it  as 
the  other.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  this  sort  of  agnostic 
tolerance  in  our  day.  It  is  true  that  there  are  always 
men  who  like  polemics,  for  in  the  average  man  the  par- 
tisan spirit,  whether  ecclesiastical  or  pohtical,  is  strong. 
But  right-minded  men  in  our  day  see  that  the  partisan 
spirit  in  defending  the  truth  is  unprofitable,  and  they 
turn  away  from  it.  It  is  questionable  whether  any 
man's  religious  opinions,  merely  as  such,  should  be  the 
object  of  polemical  attack  in  the  pulpit.  It  was  partly 
because  Mozley  would  not  be  a  partisan  that  he  rejected 
the  polemical  method  and  dealt  positively  and  declara- 
tively  with  the  truth. 

Moreover,  he  was  a  fundamental  thinker,  and  for  this 
reason  also  he  was  more  intent  upon  expounding  truth 
than  upon  attacking  error.  Polemical  preaching  is  likely 
to  be  shallow.  It  fails  to  reach  fundamental  truth.  In 
concentrating  attention  upon  error,  it  fails  to  detect  the 
truth  that  lies  behind  it,  and  that  must  be  known  in 
order  that  in  the  light  of  it  error  may  be  adequately  dis- 
closed. The  man  who  is  bent  upon  making  out  his  case 
against  an  opponent  is  pretty  sure  to  lose  sight  of  a  good 
deal  that  it  is  important  for  him  to  see.  By  failing, 
therefore,  to  get  at  what  is  fundamental,  the  polemist 
becomes  superficial.  But  the  man  who  is  confident  that 
he  has  got  down  to  hard  bottom  and  treads  on  solid 
ground,  who  knows  that  he  has  a  steady  grip  upon  what 
is  fundamental,  is  less  likely  to  indulge  in  the  polemical 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER     329 

spirit.  There  is  a  staying  and  steadying  power  in  such 
confidence.  We  see  this  in  Mozley,  as  we  saw  it  in 
Robertson.  They  were  both  high-spirited,  constitution- 
ally controversial  and  combative.  But  with  their  inde- 
pendence and  non-partisanship  there  were  associated 
supreme  devotion  to  fundamental  principles  and  su- 
preme love  for  the  truth  for  its  own  sake.  Mozley  was 
a  masterly  expounder  but  a  poor  pleader.  He  was  strong 
in  the  teaching  impulse,  but  weak  in  personal  ambition 
to  dominate  men's  opinions.  He  is,  therefore,  supremely 
intent  upon  a  clear  and  thorough  handling  of  his  subject, 
and  is  willing  to  let  it  work  its  own  way.  Hence  the  non- 
rhetorical  and  non-oratorical  quality  of  his  preaching. 

The  most  effective  pulpit  orator  must,  of  course,  be 
something  of  an  advocate.  It  is  not  enough  for  him  to 
expound  the  truth,  and  leave  it  without  moral  enforce- 
ment to  make  its  own  impression.  He  must  persuade 
as  well  as  convince.  He  must  use  the  truth  as  an  in- 
strument for  strong  incentive.  The  sermon  must  be 
shaped  with  reference  to  this  end.  Unity,  progress, 
cumulative  force,  are  necessary  for  strong  impression. 
The  address  is  more  than  an  essay.  Emotional  energy 
and  imaginative  representation  must  have  free  play, 
and  drive  the  truth  home,  that  it  may  secure  determi- 
nate results.  The  sermon  is  an  instrument  for  moral 
impression,  not  merely  a  method  of,  expressing  opinion. 
He  is  the  true  preacher  who  recognizes  this.  He  who 
fails  in  this  can  be  at  best  only  a  pulpit  teacher.  Moz- 
ley was  precisely  such  a  teacher.  He  was  defective  in 
the  preaching  impulse,  as  Newman  was  not  and  as  Lid- 
don  was  not.  Hence  defect  in  the  structural  and  rhe- 
torical quality  of  the  sermon.     The  sermon  is  notable 


330       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

for  its  mental  fulness.  The  preacher  has  mastered  his 
thought  from  beginning  to  end.  There  is  almost  a  sur- 
plus of  thought.  The  first  words  are  weighty,  the  last 
equally  so,  and  the  body  is  full.  The  sermon  is  just  a 
chance  for  the  preacher  to  say  out  what  in  its  fulness 
is  in  him  to  say ;  and  he  talks  straight  on,  not  leaving 
many  boundary  marks,  running  from  introduction  to 
theme  and  from  theme  to  discussion  and  on  to  conclu- 
sion without  a  very  well-defined  trail.  It  is  a  steady 
pull  straight  through,  and  when  he  has  said  out  all  he 
wants  to  say,  he  simply  stops.  In  the  whole  process 
there  is  little  or  no  kindling  of  emotion  or  excitation  of 
imagination,  and  no  effort  at  cumulative  effects.  Nor 
does  he,  as  he  moves  on,  seem  anxious  about  making 
appHcation  of  the  truth,  much  less  about  gathering 
applicatory  reflections  at  the  end.  He  lets  the  sermon 
apply  itself.  Whatever  there  may  be  in  the  way  of 
conclusion  is  of  the  inferential  sort  that  perpetuates  the 
mental  or  didactic  impression  of  the  sermon.  In  a  word, 
the  sermon  is  not  a  rhetorical  instrument.  For  the  in- 
tellectual hearer  or  reader  there  cannot  fail  to  be  a  tre- 
mendous impressiveness  in  that  strong,  steady  mental 
movement,  in  that  searching  psychological  analysis, 
and  that  ethical  vigor  of  the  man.  This  is  singularly 
true  of  that  most  masterful  sermon,  "The  Reversal  of 
Human  Judgment."  As  preached  it  must  have  made  a 
strong  impression  on  thoughtful  and  serious  minds. 
But  in  the  reading,  as  one  pauses  and  reflects  upon  it, 
one  fancies  that  the  impression  may  be  quite  as  strong. 
It  is  not,  however,  the  work  of  cogent  inculcation,  but  of 
masterly  exposition,  of  searching  psychological  and  ethi- 
cal analysis.     It  is  the  work  of  a  great  pulpit  teacher, 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER     331 

and  in  the  positive,  declarative  method  of  it,  Mozley  is 
eminently  helpful,  and  he  shows  how  best  to  attain  suc- 
cess in  this  method,  viz.  by  cherishing  a  supreme  love 
for  the  truth,  by  getting  a  thorough  grasp  of  it,  and  by 
refusing  to  use  it  as  a  partisan  instrument.  To  any 
preacher  who  is  feeling  his  way  after  an  effective  apolo- 
getic method,  the  freedom,  strength,  steadiness,  stateli- 
ness,  and  positiveness  of  Mozley's  mental  movement 
will  prove  to  be  a  valuable  study.  His  sermons  let  us 
inside  great  truths.  They  enlarge  the  scope  of  our 
vision.  They  support  a  high  ideal  of  apologetic  preach- 
ing. They  suggest  the  importance  of  grappling  with 
the  highest  truths  of  religion  and  of  keeping  petty 
themes  out  of  the  pulpit. 

2.  The  ethical  quality  in  Canon  Mozley's  preaching 
and  its  great  value  in  this  regard  have  already  been 
suggested.  We  are  now  ready  somewhat  more  fully 
to  consider  it.  The  above-quoted  remark  from  the 
London  Spectator^  touching  the  moral  impressiveness 
of  his  sermons,  indicates  the  ethical  character  of  his 
preaching  by  suggesting  its  strongest  possible  ethical 
result.  The  truth  supported  is  taken  into  the  realm  of 
the  moral  nature,  and  is  there  vindicated.  He  rallies 
the  consciences  of  his  hearers  to  its  support,  and  so  in 
turn  the  truth  as  discussed  becomes  the  more  effective 
instrument  in  educating  and  training  the  conscience. 
A  glance  at  the  titles  of  the  sermons  will  suggest  the 
prevailingly  ethical  character  of  the  subjects  discussed, 
and  only  a  slight  investigation  of  them  will  disclose 
their  prevaihngly  ethical  aim  and  method.  They  are 
all  adapted  to  the  production  of  a  strong  moral  impres- 
sion and  illustrate  the  fact  that  weighty  religious  truth 


332       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

is  necessary  to  profound  moral  conviction.  They  illus- 
trate the  value  for  impressive  ethical  preaching  of  a 
habit  of  going  to  the  roots  of  things,  and  of  a  habit  of 
thorough  reflection.  They  illustrate  especially  the  value 
of  a  habit  of  moral  analysis.  Mozley  was  always  a  stu- 
dent of  character  and  a  student  of  institutions.  He 
studied  men  while  he  studied  theology.  In  fact,  he 
studied  theology  in  studying  men.  He  was  a  close 
observer  and  a  keen  analyst  of  human  nature.  He 
studied  the  practical  workings  of  principles  and  motives 
in  human  life.  He  studied  his  own  soul.  He  watched 
the  working  of  the  moral  nature.  He  was  a  student  of 
the  drama.  In  all  this  lies  the  secret  of  his  power  as 
an  ethical  teacher,  and  it  made  him  exceptionally  valu- 
able as  an  adviser  and  counsellor  and  comforter.  In 
the  Roman  church  he  would  have  become  an  illustrious 
father  confessor.  A  careful  analysis  of  the  elements 
of  moral  power  in  his  sermons  would  be  a  profitable 
task  for  any  student  of  preaching.  It  would  disclose 
how  great  truths,  like  the  atonement,  providence,  the 
Trinity,  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  new  birth,  may  be  treated 
ethically  and  with  most  effective  practical  results,  and 
how  the  more  ordinary  class  of  ethical  subjects  may  be 
made,  not  only  impressive,  but  interesting,  by  directing 
attention  to  ethical  processes  and  results  that  are  not  at 
first  obvious,  and  by  holding  them  in  relation  with  what 
is  fundamental  in  the  constitution  of  human  nature. 
Canon  Mozley  is  on  the  whole  one  of  the  most  forcible 
ethical  pulpit  teachers  the  modern  church  has  furnished. 
His  power  lies  largely  in  his  singularly  subtle  but  clear 
analysis  of  the  workings  of  moral  forces  and  principles. 
There  is  something  remorselessly  searching  and,  although 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    333 

not  repellent,  most  formidable  in  his  tranquil  handling 
of  the  moral  forces  and  processes  of  the  human  soul. 
There  are  many  methods  of  handhng  the  ethical  sermon. 
The  analysis  of  motives,  the  tracing  of  moral  processes, 
the  delineation  of  the  effects  of  truth  upon  moral  char- 
acter, and  the  unescapableness  of  moral  consequences 
are  among  the  most  obvious  elements  in  Mozley's  ethi- 
cal preaching.  He  lays  hold  of  the  energies  that  are 
bedded  in  our  moral  constitution  and  brings  them  to 
light.  He  shows  men  the  workings  of  their  easily 
besetting  sins.  He  shows  them  how  they  cheat  them- 
selves, for  example,  by  using  opportunity  as  an  invita- 
tion or  a  permission  to  sin,  rather  than  as  a  summons 
to  resistance.  He  shows  us  the  value  of  sacred  habit, 
and  how  it  may  be  formed.  He  lays  stress  upon  the 
ethical  element  in  faith.  There  are  but  three  or  four 
character  sketches  in  the  two  volumes,  but  they  all  deal 
with  the  motives  and  principles  of  action  that  are  illus- 
trated by  the  characters  presented.  The  process  of 
moral  neglect  is  described  with  lucid  tranquilHty,  and 
the  fatal  necessity  of  growing  worse  by  simply  letting 
one's  self  alone,  as  illustrated  in  habits  like  those  of 
avarice  and  vindictiveness,  is  set  forth  in  most  master- 
ful manner.  His  two  most  powerful  sermons  are  per- 
haps "  Our  Duty  to  Equals "  and  the  "  Reversal  of 
Human  Judgment."  In  the  first  we  have  a  very  forci- 
ble setting  forth  of  the  moral  difficulties  in  treating  our 
equals  as  we  should.  He  examines  the  comparative 
ease  with  which  we  exercise  kindness  toward  inferiors, 
and  contrasts  it  with  the  difficulty  we  find  in  dealing 
justly  with  those  who  are  at  our  own  level  in  life.  The 
compassionate  attitude  toward  our  fellow-men  involves 


334      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

a  protected  state  of  mind,  for  there  is  a  sort  of  relief  in 
charity.  But  justice  toward  an  equal  tests  severely  the 
moral  fibre.  This  leads  to  a  discussion  of  the  two  con- 
trasted conceptions  of  life,  as  on  the  one  side  that  of  a 
mission,  and  as  on  the  other  side  that  of  a  probation. 
I  know  of  nothing  more  forcible  than  this  discussion. 
It  contains  the  gist  of  all  that  may  be  said  upon  the 
individuaUstic  and  altruistic  conceptions  of  life,  and  the 
discussion  is  a  wholesome  tonic  for  men  who  in  our  day 
are  wildly  and  irrationally  advocating  altruism,  and  are 
undermining  the  rights  of  individual  manhood. 

But  the  "  Reversal  of  Human  Judgment,"  which  Dr. 
William  M.  Taylor  has  called  the  greatest  sermon  of 
modern  times,  and  which  the  president  of  one  of  our 
New  England  colleges  has  told  us  he  reads  once  a  year 
for  the  moral  tonic  it  has  for  him,  illustrates  in  its  high- 
est reach  of  power  Mozley's  ethical  method.  It  must 
have  occurred  to  every  thoughtful  person  that  there 
may  come  sometime  a  great  change  in  our  estimate  of 
men.  The  Scriptures  encourage  this  suspicion.  They 
speak  of  a  great  deception,  of  great  errors  in  human 
judgment.  The  reason  for  this  deception  is  the  work- 
ing of  a  pure  religion  upon  a  corrupt  nature.  A  great 
show  is  the  result,  a  counterfeit  religion.  There  are 
manifold  sources  of  error  in  our  estimates  of  men,  that 
account  for  our  mistakes  of  judgment,  and  these  mis- 
takes must  some  day  be  rectified.  This  is  the  introduc- 
tion to  the  discourse.  Then  follows  a  discussion  of  the 
sources  of  these  misjudgments  in  a  very  acute  analysis 
of  the  workings  of  selfish  motive,  e.g.  in  the  political 
leader,  in  the  theological  partisan,  in  the  philanthropist 
even,  in  the  gifted  man  of  genius,  in  the  favorite   of 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    335 

earthly  fortune.  Christianity  calls  for  the  exercise  of 
the  primary  motives  of  action,  and  accepts  no  substitute. 
But  in  all  these  spheres  of  life  we  find  men  substituting 
the  secondary  for  the  primary  motives,  and  deluding 
themselves  with  the  notion  that  Christianity  may  accept 
this  as  a  proper  basis  for  estimating  men.  All  this 
must  ultimately  be  rectified.  This  discussion  is  the 
most  cogent  setting  forth  of  the  delusive  workings  of 
the  human  imagination  and  heart  that  has  been  given 
in  sermon  form  to  the  public  in  our  age.  The  minister 
or  the  politician  who  needs  a  salutary  admonition 
against  the  delusive  snare  of  theological  or  political 
partisanship  will  find  his  corrective  here.  The  discus- 
sion of  the  selfish  use  of  gifts  of  the  imagination  and  of 
the  selfishly  exaggerated  conceptions  of  a  mission  in 
the  world,  that  fail  to  recognize  the  solemn  fact  of  per- 
sonal moral  probation,  is  particularly  impressive  and 
profitable.  Lest  the  picture  of  life  here  presented 
should  seem  too  dark,  the  conclusion  directs  attention 
to  the  blending  of  the  sagacious  and  hopeful  view  of 
life  as  presented  by  Christianity,  and  is  a  most  just 
and  helpful  conclusion.  In  all  this,  as  elsewhere, 
he  lets  the  truth  do  its  own  work.  He  is  not  urgent 
to  enforce  it,  and  he  need  not  be.  He  lays  bare  the 
workings  of  the  human  soul,  and  especially  of  the 
moral  nature,  and  lets  us  make  our  own  application. 
There  are  three  phases  of  the  discussion :  first,  it  takes 
note  of  the  severe  judgment  power  of  Christianity 
and  the  deceptiveness  of  the  human  heart,  as  related  to 
it;  secondly,  we  have  an  analysis  of  the  way  in  which 
Christianity  operates  upon  the  selfish  heart  in  general ; 
and  thirdly,  illustrations  of  this  selfishness  in  different 


336   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

spheres,  with  a  conclusion  that  touches  upon  the  blend- 
ing of  realism  and  idealism  in  Christianity.  And  we 
find  here  three  important  elements  in  ethical  preaching. 
We  have  first  a  Biblical  element.  There  is  need  of  a 
Biblical  conception  in  connection  with  an  ethical  subject 
of  such  importance  as  this,  for  it  deals  with  the  future, 
which,  if  known  at  all,  must  be  known  through  BibHcal 
revelation  only.  It  is  just  this  BibHcal  revelation,  how- 
ever, that  confirms  our  own  suspicions  with  respect  to 
the  future.  The  psychological  analysis  of  the  effect  on 
selfish  human  nature  of  the  claims  of  a  pure  religion  is 
the  second  important  element ;  and  finally,  we  have  an 
illustrative  element,  showing  in  different  realms  of 
human  experience  the  workings  of  the  soul  in  relation 
to  the  claims  of  Christianity.  The  sermon  is  an  exam- 
ple especially  of  the  analytical  and  illustrative  method 
of  dealing  with  ethical  subjects.  There  is  demand  for 
more  of  this  searching,  morally  impressive  preaching, 
that  lays  bare  the  effects  of  Christianity  as  a  holy  reli- 
gion in  furnishing  occasion  for  the  development  of  the 
deceitfulness  of  the  human  heart  in  the  substitution  of 
secondary  for  primary  motives,  thus  exposing  the  de- 
lusions of  sin,  that  warns  of  moral  danger,  and  that 
lays  upon  men  a  burdening  sense  of  moral  obligation 
which  will  permit  no  rest  till  they  find  it  in  the  obedience 
of  righteousness.  In  such  preaching  Canon  Mozley 
may  be  of  great  service  as  exemplar  and  guide. 

Mozley 's  view  of  the  world  and  of  life  has  an  im- 
portant bearing  upon  the  tone  and  character  of  his 
ethical  preaching,  and  demands  a  moment's  attention. 
He  took  life  seriously.  A  mind  so  reflective  and  so 
impressible  could  not  fail  to  do  so.     Existence  is  a  sol- 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    337 

emn  reality.  Life  has  for  him  a  tragic  aspect,  and  he 
makes  the  pathos  of  it  felt  by  the  force  of  his  represen- 
tation. He  finds  himself  in  a  world  of  conflict.  He  has 
been  taught  to  fear  and  distrust  it.  There  is  a  great 
conflict  between  the  church  and  the  world,  and  perpet- 
ual dread  of  hostile  aggressions,  that  cripple  the  life  of 
the  church  and  stain  its  purity,  is  perhaps  an  inheritance 
from  the  Anglican  controversy  and  very  likely  bears 
the  mark  of  Newman's  influence.  That  the  world,  as 
we  know  it,  is  hostile  to  the  religious  life  was  one  of 
the  cardinal  teachings  of  the  Anglican  revival.  Mozley, 
therefore,  did  not  share  the  optimistic  view  of  the  world 
and  of  life  which  so  strongly  characterizes  the  religion 
of  our  day.  Sin  is  the  dark  reality  that  hovers  ever  in 
the  background  of  life  and  thrusts  itself  out  at  every 
turn.  He  has,  indeed,  no  extreme  views  of  human  de- 
pravity, and  he  is  kindly  and  tolerant  in  his  personal 
judgments.  His  conception  of  the  world  as  a  lost  world 
is  not  so  gloomy,  and  often  seemingly  contemptuous,  as 
Newman's.  He  never  deals  in  eschatological  terrors. 
But  his  world  is  a  sinful  and  lost  world.  It  is  a  world 
of  temptations.  It  is  full  of  delusions  and  snares,  and 
men  should  be  on  guard.  We  are  not  to  assume  that 
what  the  world  presents  to  our  inclinations  is  innocent, 
just  because  it  is  in  harmony  with  our  inclinations.  That 
we  belong  to  the  world  does  not  mean  that  we  are  so 
wholly  a  normal  part  of  it  that  it  may  be  regarded 
by  us  as  a  legitimate  sphere  for  self-indulgence.  The 
solicitations  of  the  world  may  be  temptations  to  be  re- 
sisted rather  than  opportunities  to  be  embraced.  We 
are  here  to  resist  the  world  and  put  it  under  our  feet. 
Life  is  a  moral  conflict,  and  the  drifting  life  is  not  a 


338   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

moral  life.  For  the  man  who  treats  his  soul  as  if  it 
were  not  held  in  the  grasp  of  inexorable  law ;  for  the 
man  who  is  all  the  while  growing  worse  and  does  not 
know  it,  simply  because  he  lets  himself  alone ;  for  the 
fatalist  who  undertakes  to  eliminate  the  guilt  of  sin  by 
calling  it  the  necessary  product  of  the  forces  of  his  own 
nature  ;  for  the  "  midway  man/'  who  dallies  with  temp- 
tation, neither  on  the  one  hand  yielding  completely  to 
it,  nor  on  the  other  wholly  resisting  its  solicitations ;  for 
the  man  who  lives  in  the  delusions  of  sin,  and  perverts 
an  august  and  solemn  existence  into  a  scene  of  folly ; 
for  any  man  who  in  any  way  treats  sin  lightly,  —  Canon 
Mozley  has  a  most  serious  message.  Life  confessedly, 
as  it  comes  to  us  through  his  representation,  is  not  so 
great  an  inspiration  and  joy  as  it  might  be.  We  miss 
the  note  of  triumph.  It  is  a  scene  of  danger.  It  can- 
not be  a  world  of  surpassing  joy  to  any  man  who  does 
not  know  the  remedial  grace  of  God.  The  choicer  joys 
of  life  are  the  joys  of  grace.  And  all  this  is  to  him  the 
Biblical  view  of  life.  Doubtless  it  is  the  earlier  Bib- 
lical view,  and  it  is  a  view  that  is  true  to  many  of  the 
facts  of  the  life  of  the  present  age,  and  the  men  of  our 
time  are  in  sore  need  of  the  faithful  presentation  of 
this  truth.  The  church  cannot  afford  to  be  deluded 
with  the  semblance  of  godliness.  Christianity  comes 
with  a  tone  of  distrust.  It  looks  upon  the  world  with  a 
certain  air  of  suspicion.  The  Bible  is  a  sagacious  book, 
and  does  not  too  freely  trust  the  world.  It  is  not  easily 
deceived,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  great  value  that  we  have 
a  vast  repository  of  truth  that  is  not  subject  to  illusions. 
It  challenges  the  world.  It  questions  its  right  to  rule. 
It  sets  it  at    naught.     In  the  last  conflict  it  sets  it  at 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    339 

complete  defiance  and  puts  it  beneath  its  feet.  The 
Bible  is  not  hostile  to  God's  world,  but  to  man's,  to  the 
world  as  it  finds  it  in  its  sins  and  delusions.  And  this, 
he  thinks,  is  our  Lord's  view  of  the  world.  His  pure 
rehgion  comes  into  contact  with  the  corrupt,  deceitful 
heart  of  man,  with  its  hidden  selfishness  and  pride,  and 
a  great  process  of  deception  begins.  The  semblance  of 
religion  takes  the  place  of  its  reality.  Christ  foresaw 
all  this,  and  warned  His  disciples  against  it,  and  it  was 
this  that  saddened  His  life.  Of  worldly  success  He  would 
have  none.  It  was  to  Him  a  delusion  and  a  snare.  He 
resisted  its  solicitations  as  a  Satanic  temptation.  He 
lived  in  the  shadow  of  His  cross.  Every  hour  of  prom- 
ised worldly  success  was  but  a  preintimation  of  His 
last  hour  of  mortal  suffering  and  of  earthly  defeat.  As 
He  was  here  to  fight  this  world,  so  are  we.  It  is  a  heroic 
life,  yet  solemn  and  tragic  in  its  processes  and  results. 

In  all  this  we  may  miss  the  note  of  triumph.  It  is 
rather  too  gloomy  a  world  for  our  bright  day,  and  men 
are  likely  to  turn  away  from  it.  Our  preacher  does  not 
seem  to  live,  as  the  modern  preacher  wishes  to  live,  in 
the  kingdom  of  redemption,  and  does  not  seem  to  be- 
hold the  world  as  evermore  God's  world,  struggling  on- 
ward to  the  goal  of  sinlessness  and  completeness.  The 
victorious  Christ  is  not  put  into  the  forefront  of  the  rep- 
resentation, as  we  might  wish.  The  positive  and  pro- 
ductive energies  of  redemption,  as  they  centre  in  the 
ever  abiding  presence  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Eternal,  are 
not  brought  to  our  attention  as  they  well  might  be. 
The  point  of  view  of  natural  religion,  as  distinguished 
from  the  Christian  point  of  view,  is  too  often  apparent. 
It  is  the  philosophical  view  of  life,  such  as  we  find  in 


340      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

Bishop  Butler,  and  with  both  the  evangelical  note  of 
redemption  and  the  note  of  personal  conquest  in  Christ, 
although  everywhere  presupposed,  are  less  conspicuous 
in  their  representation  than  might  be  wished.  But  for 
the  man  who  needs  to  be  warned,  to  know  himself,  to 
distrust  himself,  to  stand  on  guard,  or  to  walk  warily,  or 
to  fight  valiantly,  Mozley  is  a  messenger  from  God. 
The  very  reading  of  his  searching  words  should,  indeed, 
with  ministries  of  grace,  be  "enough  to  change  the 
whole  life  of  a  man." 

But  his  world  is  more  than  a  sinful  world.  It  is  an 
inadequate  world.  The  life  that  now  is,  as  such  and  in 
and  for  itself  alone,  has  for  him  but  little  significance 
and  value.  It  finds  its  worth  in  its  relation  to  the  life 
beyond.  His  point  of  view  is  not  the  eternal  life  with 
its  present  "and  future  as  two  phases  bound  indissolubly 
together,  each  with  its  own  essential  and  relatively  inde- 
pendent value.  The  present  and  the  future  stand  in 
too  strong  contrast.  Only  from  its  relation  to  the  future 
does  the  present  life  find  value.  The  present,  indeed, 
may  have  a  relative  value.  But  it  is  the  future  alone 
that  has  absolute  worth.  Hence  he  dwells  upon  the 
transitoriness  of  life,  upon  its  inequalities,  its  inadequa- 
cies, its  delusions  and  follies.  The  future  life  alone  is 
the  real  life,  and  the  present  life  is  preparation  for  it. 
With  all  of  Robertson's  strength  of  conviction,  but  not 
with  his  intensity  of  emotion  or  poetic  stateliness  of 
diction,  does  Mozley  set  forth  the  transitoriness  of  an 
earthly  life,  its  emptiness  and  unreality,  when  it  is  cut 
from  its  connection  with  the  life  eternal.  The  hectic 
flush  of  the  passing  glory  of  the  world  we  do  not  see. 
The  pathos  of  a  pageant  scene  that  passes  before  our 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    341 

eyes  we  have  not.  But  with  solemn  step  he  treads  amid 
life's  inadequacies,  and  with  steady  hand  he  points  us 
to  a  higher  world.  His  prevailing  conception  of  life  is 
that  of  a  probation.  It  is  set  over  against  the  concep- 
tion of  life  as  a  mission.  He  would  not  minimize  the 
value  of  life  as  opportunity  for  noble  philanthropic 
achievement.  But  he  is  distrustful  of  some  phases  of 
modern  altruism,  as  involving  an  inadequate  representa- 
tion of  life,  for  it  too  often  loses  sight  of  that  conception 
of  life  that  regards  it  as  a  sphere  for  the  training  of 
personal  character,  and  for  this  reason  he  sets  the  pro- 
bation over  in  contrast  with  the  mission  of  life.  It  is 
easy  to  make  a  great  show  of  life.  Men  magnify  suc- 
cess and  minimize  the  discipline  of  life.  Life  becomes 
a  stage  and  they  lose  a  sense  of  reality.  They  act  a 
part  and  imagine  themselves  as  still  living  in  the  realm 
of  reality.  Here,  then,  we  find  in  a  strongly  socialistic 
age  a  sturdy  individualist.  An  institutional  religion, 
High  churchman  though  he  is,  has  for  him  no  perma- 
nent value,  and  just  as  little  a  secularistic  religion  that 
knows  of  a  mission  but  of  no  probation.  Personal  char- 
acter is  the  supreme  interest.  Without  it  the  world  is  not 
saved.  According  to  Froebel  what  is  individual  in  man 
is  the  divine  element  within  him.  Mozley  advances 
upon  this  and  makes  individuality  the  product  of  God's 
grace.  To  develop  unto  perfection  what  is  most  indi- 
vidual and  distinctive  in  man  is  the  work  of  God's  Spirit, 
and  this,  not  less  than  the  unification  of  men  in  the  body 
of  Christ,  is  the  end  of  existence.  No  man  knows  him- 
self, no  man  comes  to  himself,  no  man  is  himself,  till  he 
is  born  again.  It  is  the  highest  mark  of  the  divine  in 
man,  that  he  should  be  himself,  and  no  man-  is  him- 


342   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

self  who  is  not  his  higher,  his  ideal,  his  religious  self. 
Such  being  Mozley's  conception  of  life,  it  is  natural 
that,  with  his  moral  sensitiveness,  he  should  stand  in  a 
sort  of  awe  of  it.  It  is  natural,  too,  that  the  sentiment 
of  awe,  or  that  the  quality  of  reverence,  should  be  a 
more  marked  quality  in  his  religious  character  than 
affectionateness  or  deUcacy  of  religious  emotion.  He 
had  not  the  genius  for  ardent  religious  devotion.  He 
was  critical  rather  than  enthusiastic.  He  was,  in  fact, 
suspicious  of  enthusiasm,  as  he  was  of  all  forms  of  sec- 
tarian religion,  as  involving  unlimited  possibilities  of 
delusion  and  of  delusive  selfishness.  The  attitude  of 
fear  is  for  him  the  normal  Christian  attitude.  Dread 
of  the  august  realities  of  the  moral  universe  is  more 
Christian  than  that  overweening  confidence  that  may  be 
the  product  of  high-mindedness  and  pride. 

But  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  not  to  recognize  the 
more  hopeful  view  of  life  that  modifies  what  in  our  day 
would  be  called,  and  has  been  called.  Canon  Mozley's 
pessimism.  He  fully  recognizes  the  optimistic  element 
in  Christianity,  and  finds  a  place  for  it  in  his  own  view  of 
the  world.  He  was  a  Christian  realist,  but  he  was  also 
a  Christian  idealist.  He  held  the  ecclesiastical  point  of 
view  in  his  outlook  upon  life,  but  he  was  also  humanistic 
in  his  tendencies.  He  knew  the  world  as  under  the 
dominion  of  sin,  but  he  knew  it  as  a  world  redeemed. 
Between  the  spirit  of  the  world  and  the  spirit  of  true 
religion,  and  between  the  world  as  under  the  dominion 
of  sin  and  the  church  as  the  organ  of  God's  kingdom, 
there  is  an  irreconcilable  antagonism.  But  there  is  no 
principle  of  dualism  in  his  conception  of  the  world. 
Nature  is  from  God's  hand  and  nature  is  good.     Man 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    343 

has  never  lost  the  divine  image  nor  the  world  its  sacred- 
ness.  All  forms  of  natural  life  have  a  good  of  their 
own,  and  outside  the  church  there  is  an  independent 
moral  life.  A  man  is  not  a  sinner  merely  as  being  sub- 
ject to  the  impulses  of  nature,  he  is  such  rather  because 
he  fails  to  rise  to  the  realm  of  the  spirit.  Sin  is  the  miss- 
ing of  the  mark  of  the  higher  spiritual  manhood.  Sin 
is  not  natural,  but  is  the  misuse  of  nature.  The  prob- 
lem of  religion  is  not  to  crush  nature,  but  to  regulate  it. 
Moderation  contains  the  principle  of  virtue.  "Virtue 
turns  vice  being  misapplied."  Worldly  occupations  are 
God's  ordinances,  and  fidelity  to  the  little  duties  of  life 
is  better  than  aspiration  for  showy  gifts.  There  are 
people  who  are  in  some  proper  sense  born  religious. 
So  fully  and  so  early  are  they  under  the  guidance  of 
the  Spirit  of  God,  that  the  boundary  line  between  the 
natural  and  the  spiritual  man  is  obliterated.  In  a  nobly 
eloquent  passage  in  "The  Reversal  of  Human  Judg- 
ment," he  recognizes  the  possibility  of  stored  treasures 
of  good,  even  in  those  in  whom  we  might  not  expect  it, 
that  may  be  disclosed  at  the  last  day.  There  are  great 
surprises  even  here  and  now.  The  last  are  often  found 
to  be  first  in  latent  good,  and  the  first  prove  to  be  last. 
The  thief  on  the  cross  is  a  surprise.  Remember  the 
discipline  of  life  among  the  poor  and  the  sorrowing. 
Think  of  the  agencies  in  a  soldier's  life  that  lift  the 
soul  beyond  itself.  A  foundation  of  goodness  is  laid  in 
lowly  places,  and  the  world  sees  it  not.  Some  rich  fruit 
of  all  this  will  emerge  in  the  future  life.  Single  acts  of 
virtue  often  "  spring  from  minds  in  which  there  is  not 
the  habit  of  virtue."  "  Sudden  leaps  in  virtue  show  an 
unseen  spring  in  a  man,  which  are  able  to  compass  in  a 


344      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

moment  the  growth  of  years."  ^  The  nation  as  such  has 
a  moral  life  of  its  own.  War  is  one  of  a  nation's  rights, 
and  Christianity,  in  recognizing  the  state  as  one  of  the 
divine  polities,  whose  essential  sacredness  has  not  been 
lost  by  sin,  recognizes  also  as  one  of  its  rights  the  right 
of  war.  In  a  sermon  on  "  War,"  which  is  on  the  whole 
rather  unsatisfactory,  he  criticises  the  ecclesiastical  view 
of  the  nation  in  accordance  with  which  patriotism  is  re- 
garded as  one  of  the  "  sentiments  of  nature  which  grace 
has  obliterated."  Christianity  adopts  nature  in  all  its 
phases,  poetry,  art,  philosophy,  and  will  not  crush  it. 
Nature  furnishes  "  the  material  which  religion  is  to  pene- 
trate." He  is  severe  upon  the  attitude  of  suspicion  and 
of  passionate  hostility  toward  the  unconsecrated  king- 
dom of  this  world,  as  if  all  good  had  vanished  from  it, 
which  is  manifested  by  the  representatives  of  the  Roman 
church.2  ji^  a^ii  ^j^jg  j^  jg  evident  that  Newman  had  left 
no  unhealthy  influence  upon  his  thinking,  and  that  his 
high  Anglicanism  had  not  left  him  the  victim  of  a 
ghostly  and  unnatural  type  of  religiousness.  With  all 
his  high  ecclesiasticism  he  was  simple  and  real  in  his 
conception  of  religion. 

3.  With  respect  to  the  formal  or  artistic  aspects  of 
Canon  Mozley's  preaching  there  is  nothing  that  demands 
special  consideration,  and  there  is  but  very  little  here 
that  is  of  value.  The  artistic  sen§e  was  not  a  prominent 
gift ;  and  he  attached  but  little  value  to  homiletic  form. 
It  is  the  substance  of  his  thought  that  deeply  interests 
us,  the  fibre  of  the  sermon  rather  than  its  form.  The 
thought  is  thrown  out  in  a  seemingly  easy,  natural  way, 

1  "The  Reversal  of  Human  Judgment,"  " University  Sermons,"  p,  95. 

2  "Roman  Council,"  "University  Sermons,"  pp.  14-15. 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    345 

suggesting  no  conscious  effort,  although  the  seeming 
spontaneity  is  doubtless  the  conquest  of  years  of  hard 
work.  So  full  is  he  of  the  subject  in  its  largeness  and 
productiveness  that  he  launches  at  the  outset  into  a 
group  of  interesting  preUminary  thoughts  that  set  us 
at  once  in  relation  with  his  discussion,  and  when  he 
comes  to  the  close  he  leaves  the  impression  that  there 
is  enough  more  to  say,  and  that  he  has  not  half  ex- 
hausted the  resources  of  the  subject.  The  thought  of 
the  conclusion,  too,  is  as  large  and  full  and  as  suggestive 
of  intellectual  resource  as  the  rest  of  the  sermon.  The 
discriminating  quality  of  thought  is  notable.  It  is  the 
work  of  a  trained  thinker.  There  are  no  crude  state- 
ments here.  All  is  well-considered,  well-related  thought. 
In  subtleties  he  is  not  over  nice.  There  is  no  elaborate 
following  out  of  distinctions  into  regions  too  remote, 
but  the  thought  is  presented  in  its  larger  and  more 
salient  outlines.  This  closely  observing  and  discriminat- 
ing quality  is  associated  with  a  characteristic  that  is 
quite  distinctive  and  of  which  I  have  already  spoken, 
viz.  his  intellectual  impressibility.  Anything  that  is 
striking,  anything  that  is  unique  or  distinctive  in  the 
thought  of  a  text  or  in  any  phase  of  the  subject  in  hand, 
readily  impresses  him,  and  he  is  sure  to  direct  attention 
to  it.  This  is  done  especially  in  the  introduction  to 
the  sermon,  and  there  are,  in  fact,  but  few  sermons  in 
the  two  volumes  that  fail  to  arrest  our  attention  to  these 
surprises  of  thought.  Some  perplexing  question  is  in- 
troduced, and  the  sermon  proceeds  to  clear  it  up.  We 
start  with  some  impressive  scene  like  a  kneeling,  silent 
congregation  in  the  presence  of  an  invisible  object,  and, 
of  course,  the  whole  sermon  has  from  the  outset  the 


346       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

advantage  of  this  first  impression.  Something  surpris- 
ing in  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  human  life  is 
brought  to  our  attention,  and  he  makes  it  his  task  to 
clear  up  the  perplexity.  For  example,  the  strange  and 
startling  fact  that  Christianity  recognizes  the  right  of 
war.  In  order  to  make  the  strangeness  of  this  recogni- 
tion as  impressive  as  possible,  he  presents  a  somewhat 
extreme  statement  of  what  it  involves,  and  then  he  pro- 
ceeds to  discuss  the  basis  of  the  recognition.  He 
pitches  upon  what  is  perplexing  or  searching  or  repul- 
sive in  his  text,  proceeds  to  expound  it,  and  makes  it 
the  key-note  of  the  entire  sermon,  or  rests  the  entire  dis- 
cussion upon  it.  The  text  he  chooses  is  a  searching 
text;  it  is  an  eye  that  has  through  all  the  Christian 
generations  been  looking  out  calmly  and  reproachfully 
upon  the  church  and  held  it  in  judgment!  The  thought 
of  the  text  causes  us  to  shrink  back  as  in  a  sort  of 
dread,  and  we  are  told  why  this  is  so.  It  is  surprising 
that  a  being  so  unworldly  as  Christ,  so  apparently  ab- 
sorbed in  the  visions  of  heavenly  reality,  should  have 
exhibited  an  habitual,  cheerful  love  of  nature.  The 
highest  spiritual  life,  therefore,  is  not  ghostly  and  un- 
natural. If  he  quotes  as  his  text  the  resolve  of  "  The 
Preacher  "  to  test  folly  as  well  as  wisdom  by  experiment, 
he  cannot  withhold  surprise  that  any  sane  man  should 
give  himself  to  folly  as  well  as  to  wisdom,  as  if  any 
experiment  were  needed  to  determine  that  folly  cannot 
be  matched  against  wisdom  as  an  object  of  investigation 
and  experiment.  It  is  this  peculiarity  in  Canon  Mozley 
that  contributes  to  his  preaching  the  element  of  sugges- 
tiveness.  There  is  always  something  new  and  fresh. 
The  thought-grip  of   the  subject  appears  in  the  main 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    347 

body  of  the  sermon  in  his  free  method  of  handling. 
The  movement  knows  but  little  homiletic  restraint.  The 
path  is  clear  to  him,  and  the  journey  is  onward,  but  he 
leaves  but  few  mile-stones  to  mark  progress.  He  has 
a  large,  interesting,  impressive  thought  in  his  mind,  and 
it  has  been  thoroughly  and  discriminatingly  excogitated ; 
but  he  plunges  rapidly  into  the  midst  of  his  discussion 
and  runs  easily  across  the  boundary  line  of  introduc- 
tion and  discussion  without  marking  the  transition. 
The  very  fulness  and  freedom  of  his  handhng  seem  to 
mislead  him  into  a  lack  of  distinctness  and  definiteness 
of  outline,  and  sometimes  into  lack  of  discrimination  in 
the  conception  of  his  theme.  The  thought  is  large  and 
full  and  does  not  rigidly  define  itself.  The  great  ser- 
mon to  which  reference  has  so  frequently  been  made 
fails  in  a  certain  definiteness  of  outHne,  and  in  a  close 
previous  analysis  of  the  theme.  The  general  subject  is 
doubtless  suggested  by  the  title.  There  is  to  be  a  final 
reversal  of  human  judgment.  But,  as  is  not  infre- 
quently the  case,  the  general  subject  is  not  the  exact 
theme.  The  main  thought  discussed  is  the  perversion 
to  which  Christianity  is  subjected  by  the  exercise  of  wrong 
motive,  particularly  by  the  substitution  of  the  lower  for 
the  higher  motives  in  the  lives  of  men.  Christianity 
demands  the  highest  and  purest  motives,  and  condemns 
men  for  displacing  them.  The  sequel  of  this  displace- 
ment of  what  is  primary  by  what  is  secondary  will  be 
an  ultimate  reversal  of  the  judgments  of  men.  Men 
accept  the  lower  standard,  but  Christianity  will  accept 
only  the  highest,  and  will  judge  men  accordingly. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  main  thought  of  the 
sermon.      But  the  theme  and  the   discussion  are  not 


348       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

identical  and  are  practically  at  cross-purposes.  The  dis- 
cussion turns  upon  the  grounds  of  perverted  Christianity, 
the  substitution  of  lower  for  higher  motives.  The  theme 
covers  the  single  thought  of  the  issue  of  such  perver- 
sion in  a  divine  reversal. 

In  the  formal  or  technical  aspect,  his  preaching 
would  have  been  better  if  his  introductions  had  run  less 
undistinguishably  into  the  discussion,  if  the  theme  had 
been  more  closely  defined,  if  the  parts  of  the  discussion 
had  been  more  carefully  differentiated,  and  if  the  conclu- 
sion had  been  more  distinct.  The  sermon  does  not  lack 
unity  of  thought,  but  it  lacks  proportion  and  order  in 
discussion,  and,  as  with  Newman's  sermons,  there  is 
often  lack  of  cumulative  force.  But  his  preaching  has 
great  expository  power.  In  his  handling  of  effective 
methods  of  clear  and  forcible  thought-interpretation  he 
is  masterly.  He  lacked,  however,  the  training  of  the 
rhetorician  and  the  orator.  For  a  high  Anglican,  whose 
vocation  it  was  to  preach  to  an  Oxford  audience,  this 
will  do.  But  any  preacher,  even  though  he  preach  to 
audiences  that  care  more  for  substance  than  for  form, 
would  be  more  effective  if  he  were  to  throw  his  mate- 
rial into  the  form  appropriate  to  an  oratorical  address. 
The  reflective,  discriminating,  and  at  the  same  time 
affluent  quality  of  the  thought  of  the  sermon  discloses 
itself  in  the  quality  of  the  style.  As  in  the  preaching 
of  Robertson,  the  style  is  entirely  subordinate  to  the 
thought.  It  changed  in  the  process  of  his  development. 
It  became  more  simple  and  clear  and  exact.  He  aimed 
to  state  what  he  had  to  say  in  a  direct  and  straight- 
forward manner,  to  crowd  back  all  exuberance  of  imag- 
ination, and  all   surplus  feeling,   so  that   they  should 


THE  APOLOGETIC  AND  ETHICAL  PREACHER    349 

have  no  undue  influence  upon  his  utterance.  If  these 
rhetorical  qualities  had  found  freer  expression,  he  might 
have  become  a  more  effective  preacher ;  but  his  diction 
as  a  teacher  could  hardly  have  been  stronger  or  clearer 
or  more  readily  apprehensible.  It  is  a  style  that  speaks 
prevailingly  to  the  mind  by  its  strength  and  transpar- 
ency, and  becomes  a  fit  instrument  for  impressing  the 
moral  nature.  And  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
no  homiletic  or  rhetorical  defect  seems  to  limit  the 
power  of  these  sermons  for  the  reader,  and,  after  all, 
this  must  be  the  basis  of  our  estimate.  In  the  clear- 
ness of  his  expository  method,  in  the  convincingness 
with  which  he  sets  forth  the  great  truths  of  religion, 
and  in  the  ethical  cogency  of  his  inculcation,  he  is  one 
of  the  most  princely  pulpit  teachers  of  his  day. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THOMAS   GUTHRIE 

From  the  intellectual  point  of  view,  Guthrie  can 
hardly  be  called  a  typical  Scottish  preacher.  He  lacked 
the  theological  learning  and  training  and  the  intellec- 
tual strength  and  discrimination  that  we  usually  asso- 
ciate with  the  Scottish  pulpit.  He  belongs  to  the 
school  of  Chalmers,  but  he  represents  it  on  the  artistic 
and  practical  rather  than  on  the  intellectual  side.  And 
it  is  as  representing  the  Scottish  pulpit  in  its  modified 
Calvinism,  its  abandonment  of  the  doctrinal  and  argu- 
mentative method  of  presenting  Christianity,  its  evan- 
gelical devotion,  its  adaptation  to  the  practical  needs  of 
men,  especially  its  evangelical  spirit  and  philanthropic 
enterprise,  and  above  all  its  popular  effectiveness,  that 
he  has  been  chosen  for  our  consideration.  For  in  his 
popular  rhetorical  qualities  he  far  surpassed  all  the 
Scottish  preachers  of  his  day. 

I 

GUTHRIE'S   CHARACTER  AND   CAREER 

Thomas  Guthrie  belonged  to  an  old  Scottish  family, 
whose  ancestors  were  numbered  among  the  Covenanters. 
It  was  always  with  him  a  matter  of  honest  pride,  which 
was  highly  commendable,  that  he  could  trace  his  lineage 

350 


CHARACTER   AND   CAREER  351 

to  men  of  such  heroic  faith,  and  particularly  that  one  of 
them  had  given  his  life  as  a  martyr  to  the  cause  of  the 
Covenanters.  It  is  likely  that  his  own  brave  and  manly 
life  of  devotion  to  the  rights  of  conscience  and  to  the 
relief  and  elevation  of  the  poor  and  ignorant,  and  of 
struggle  against  physical  disease,  found  abundant  inspi- 
ration in  the  consciousness  that  he  was  in  some  sort  the 
heir  to  such  Christian  heroism.  Unlike  many  distin- 
guished Scottish  preachers,  he  was  not,  as  he  says  of 
himself,  "a  child  of  the  manse."  The  Scottish  preachers 
have  for  the  most  part  come  from  humble  homes,  and  in 
early  years  have  known  the  struggles  of  adversity. 
Guthrie  knew  but  little  of  such  early  struggles,  and  his 
entire  career,  although  one  of  hard  work,  bore  the  marks 
of  a  well-used  prosperity.  His  father  was  a  well-to-do 
merchant-magistrate,  and  loyal  son  of  the  kirk,  in  the 
little  town  of  Brechin,  on  the  eastern  border  of  Scotland, 
near  Montrose,  where,  in  1803,  the  son  was  born,  one  of  a 
family  of  twelve  children.  His  mother  was  a  woman 
who  evidently  had  in  an  eminent  degree  the  character- 
istic Scottish  virtue  of  independence  and  tenacity  of 
purpose,  which  she  disclosed  in  regulation  fashion  by 
withdrawing  from  the  Established  church,  and  by  join- 
ing one  of  the  Secession  communities,  because,  as  she 
claimed,  the  spiritual  pabulum  she  received  in  the  kirk 
did  not  further  "  the  welfare  of  her  soul,"  thus  leaving 
her  husband  behind  and  taking  with  her  the  eldest  son 
and  a  daughter.  This  lack  of  spiritual  pabulum,  of 
which  the  mother  complains,  suggests  the  dominance, 
in  the  Established  church  at  that  time,  of  the  "  Moder- 
ate "  party,  with  its  unfruitful  moralizings  and  literary 
respectabilities,  and  it  indicates  at  the  same  time  her 


352   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

own  dominating  evangelical  sympathies.  This  inde- 
pendence of  character  and  evangehcal  zeal,  that  put 
such  supreme  emphasis  upon  the  interests  of  the  soul 
as  led  the  mother  to  break  with  her  church,  reappeared 
in  the  son,  who,  while  loyal  to  the  kirk  and  unwilling  to 
break  with  it,  was  more  loyal  still  to  the  rights  of  the 
individual  soul  and  to  "the  crown  rights  of  Christ," 
which  in  subsequent  years  he  disclosed  in  his  antago- 
nism to  the  aggressions  of  the  state  authorities  in  the 
sphere  of  church  life. 

This  quiet  country  town  was  his  home  for  twenty-one 
years,  including  the  years  of  his  university  life.  In  the 
household  life  Old  Testament  stories  and  Bunyan's 
**  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  early  stimulated  his  imagination, 
and  fostered  those  realistic  qualities  of  mind  and  those 
gifts  for  concrete  representation  that  were  so  character- 
istic of  his  preaching.  He  himself  refers  to  the  early 
influence  of  the  Book  of  Proverbs  upon  the  thrift  of 
Scottish  character.  Brechin  was  not  far  from  the  shore 
of  the  German  Ocean,  and  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the 
sea  must  have  impressed  his  youthful  imagination,  for 
they  appear  largely  as  illustrative  material  in  his  preach- 
ing. He  became  very  familiar,  too,  with  the  natural 
scenery  of  the  country,  and  with  those  objects  of  human 
interest  and  enterprise  and  industry  that  left  their  im- 
press upon  his  enthusiastic  and  practical  Scottish  mind. 
At  what  the  Memoir  characterizes  **  the  preposterously 
early  age  of  twelve  years  "  he  entered  the  University  of 
Edinburgh,  and  graduated  at  the  age  of  sixteen.  His 
physical  personality  was  charged  like  a  battery  with 
vitality.  He  was  intense  in  his  enthusiasm,  cheerful 
and  kindly  in  disposition,  and  his  rollicking  joviality  lin- 


CHARACTER  AND   CAREER  353 

gered  with  him  through  all  the  storms  of  life,  and  alle- 
viated such  hardness  of  lot  as  he  was  called  to  endure, 
as  was  the  case  with  his  larger-moulded  friend  and  con- 
temporary, Norman  McLeod.  This  limitless  exuber- 
ance, which  suggests  the  Frenchman  rather  than  the 
Scotchman,  was  one  of  the  elements  of  his  effectiveness 
as  a  pulpit  orator.  Even  when  at  last  the  pitcher  was 
broken  at  the  fountain,  this  fulness  of  life  was  never 
wholly  exhausted.  At  the  university  he  made  but  little 
head  in  any  one  branch  of  learning.  It  is  said,  however, 
that  his  reading  was  wide  and  that  it  was  tributary  to 
his  general  culture.  It  is  certain  that  the  literature 
with  which  he  familiarized  himself,  beginning  with  the 
robust  and  healthy  Sir  Walter  Scott,  was  of  a  high 
order,  and  that  it  was  a  determinative  influence  for  his 
whole  life.  But  scholarship  in  the  academic  sense  of 
the  term  he  had  not.  The  movements  of  modern  life 
had  begun  to  influence  the  prominent  Scottish  preach- 
ers of  the  Evangelical  school.  Indeed,  it  was  one  of  the 
peculiarities  of  this  school  that,  in  reacting  against  the 
benumbing  influence  of  Moderatism,  they  not  only 
sought  to  quicken  the  spiritual  life  of  the  churches,  but 
to  make  a  more  broadly  practical  application  of  Chris- 
tianity. This  was  the  meaning  of  Chalmers's  church 
extension  movement,  and  while  Chalmers  was,  in  his 
scientific  theology,  a  man  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in 
his  practical  theology,  or  in  his  practical  conception  and 
application  of  Christianity,  he  belonged  to  the  nine- 
teenth. He  was  a  political  economist  and  a  practical 
mathematician,  and  availed  himself  of  his  knowledge  of 
these  subjects  in  his  ministerial  work;  and  his  commer- 
cial and  astronomical  discourses  indicate  his  interest  in 
2  A 


354      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

relating  the  truths  of  Christianity  to  commerce  and 
science.  In  all  these  respects  we  may  perhaps  see  the 
influence  of  Chalmers  upon  Guthrie.  But  his  own  native 
tendencies  led  him  in  the  same  direction.  His  interest 
in  objective  realities  and,  in  general,  his  non-speculative 
and  practical  tendencies  gave  him  a  bias  toward  the 
physical  sciences.  He  took  extra  courses  in  chemistry 
and  natural  philosophy  when  at  the  university. 

The  influences  that  committed  him  to  the  work  of  the 
ministry  are  not  evident.  Very  likely  the  choice  was  de- 
termined largely  by  the  influence  of  his  home.  But,  how- 
ever this  may  be,  his  entrance  upon  theological  studies, 
at  the  close  of  the  academic  course,  seems  to  have  been 
a  foregone  conclusion.  He  was  not  distinguished  as  a 
theological  student  at  the  Divinity  Hall  of  the  university, 
although  his  gift  for  facile  rhetorical  expression  and  his 
forcefulness  and  attractiveness  as  a  speaker,  in  which 
gifts  he  carefully  trained  himself,  must  have  given  prom- 
ise of  his  future  eminence  as  a  preacher  and  platform 
orator.  He  accepted  the  modified  type  of  Calvinism 
that  was  current  among  the  Evangelicals  of  his  day,  of 
which  Chalmers  was  the  representative,  and  his  preach- 
ing presupposes  it  rather  than  defends  it.  He  never 
fully  appropriated  the  historical  and  experimental  method 
of  approaching  Christianity.  For  him  Christianity  is  an 
objective  revelation  of  divine  truth  which  is  vindicated 
by  external  evidences,  which  the  human  reason  is  incom- 
petent to  criticise,  although  it  is  competent  to  defend  it, 
especially  in  the  use  of  experimental  proofs ;  and  of  this 
conception  of  Christianity  he  remained  to  the  end  an 
advocate.  It  is  true  that  he  became  in  his  way  some- 
thing of  a  Biblical  student,  and  illustrated  the  improve- 


CHARACTER  AND   CAREER  355 

ment  in  Biblical  exposition  and  application  that  was 
common  in  the  Evangelical  preaching  of  his  day.  He 
expounded  the  Scriptures  with  much  vivacity  and  applied 
them  in  a  suggestive  and  interesting  manner.  But  his 
work  always  lacked  a  critical  basis.  As  in  the  academic, 
so  in  the  divinity  courses,  he  continued  to  manifest 
special  aptitude  for  the  physical  sciences,  and  it  was  very 
likely  through  these  scientific  interests  in  part  that  he 
subsequently  came  into  close  friei^dly  relations  with 
Hugh  Miller.  In  general  literature  he  continued  to 
read  somewhat  widely,  and  its  influence  upon  his  liter- 
ary tastes  and  style  appeared  more  fully  later  on.  It 
was  not  till  near  the  close  of  the  most  active  period 
of  his  life  that  he  became  fully  conscious  of  his  gift  for 
rhetorical  expression.  His  scientific  knowledge  and  his 
literary  culture,  in  connection  with  his  habits  of  close  ob- 
servation of  nature,  and  his  familiarity  with  practical  Hfe, 
served  him  well  in  furnishing  illustrative  material  for 
the  pulpit  during  all  the  subsequent  years.  On  account 
of  his  pronounced  Evangelical  views  and  his  independent 
adherence  to  them,  involving  a  somewhat  antagonistic 
attitude  toward  the  Moderate  party  that  had  control  of  the 
patronage  of  the  Established  church,  he  was,  for  five  years 
after  his  graduation  in  theology  and  his  licensure,  unable 
to  secure  a  church.  But  he  held  conscientiously  and 
tenaciously  to  his  position,  and  bided  his  time.  It  was 
a  very  unwise  procedure,  as  the  issue  proved,  for  the 
party  in  power  thus  to  intensify  Guthrie's  antagonism. 
Meantime  he  pursued  a  course  that  was  exceedingly 
profitable  to  his  future  ministry;  and  one  may  almost 
felicitate  the  churches  of  Scotland  that  the  short-sighted 
policy  of  the  latitudinarian  respectabilities  of  the  Estab- 


356   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

lishment  was  preparing  a  more  vigorous  and  effective 
antagonist  of  its  corrupt  system  of  patronage  and  of  in- 
trusion into  the  spiritual  independence  of  the  church 
than  otherwise  might  have  been  possible.  He  returned 
for  a  few  months  to  the  university,  and  continued  his 
studies  in  chemistry  and  natural  history.  The  year 
following,  1826,  he  spent  several  months  in  Paris  at  the 
Sorbonne  in  the  same  line  of  study,  at  the  same  time 
attending  medical  lectures  and  the  medical  cHnic,  and 
all  the  while  enlarging  in  a  general  way  by  close  obser- 
vation his  knowledge  of  the  world  of  men,  in  whose 
affairs  he  was  always  chiefly  interested.  Finding  upon 
his  return  that  his  way  to  the  pulpit  was  still  blocked, 
he  entered  a  banking  house,  where  he  continued  for 
three  years,  holding  the  responsible  position  of  bank 
manager.  At  last,  through  the  friendly  intervention  of 
an  influential  member  of  the  British  Parliament,  he  was 
appointed  to  the  parish  of  Arbirlot,  not  far  to  the  south 
from  his  home.  He  was  now  twenty-seven  years  old,  a 
man  of  multifarious  aptitudes,  of  varied  experiences,  of 
increasing  maturity  and  enlarging  power.  Here  at  once 
the  results  of  his  manifold  interests,  his  comprehensive 
training,  and  his  practical  aggressiveness  began  to  dis- 
close themselves.  He  gave  himself  first  of  all  to  the 
task  of  refreshing  and  developing  the  religious  life 
of  his  church.  He  resuscitated  the  moribund  church 
prayer-meeting  and  the  catechetical  class;  he  estab- 
lished cottage  prayer-meetings,  which  brought  the  dif- 
ferent sections  of  the  parish  into  closer  contact;  he 
started  Sabbath-schools  and  founded  a  parish  library, 
all  of  which  were  kept  under  his  immediate  supervision  ; 
he  threw  himself  into  the  general  life  of  the  community. 


CHARACTER  AND   CAREER  357 

carrying  his  religion  beyond  the  parish  into  the  secular  life 
of  the  people ;  he  was  a  vigorous  advocate  of  temperance, 
and  was  soon  instrumental  in  clearing  the  town  of  the  two 
saloons  that  had  thrived  there;  and  he  established  a  bank 
for  the  poor,  whose  affairs  he  personally  managed.  Of 
his  experience  in  practical  life  he  says,  in  his  autobi- 
ography :  "  In  point  of  fact  it  was  not  the  least  valuable 
part  of  my  training  and  education.  I  became  conversant 
with  mercantile  and  agricultural  affairs,  and  men  who 
both  in  country  and  town  afterward  became  my  people 
did  not  respect  me  the  less  when  they  found  their  min- 
ister was  something  else  than  a  *  fine  bodie '  who  knew 
no  more  about  the  affairs  and  hopes  and  disappoint- 
ments and  trials  of  men  engaged  in  the  business  of  the 
world  than  any  old  wife  or  *  the  man  in  the  moon.'  My 
people  at  Arbirlot  were  all  the  better  for  the  knowledge 
of  business  I  had  acquired  at  the  bank,  as  I  had  not 
been  long  there  when  I  established  a  savings-bank  in 
that  country  parish,  getting  two  or  three  of  the  principal 
farmers  to  be  trustees  along  with  myself.  I  was  entire 
manager,  giving  out  money  only  on  Saturday  evenings, 
the  regular  time  for  its  transactions,  and  that  only  on  a 
weekly  or  fortnightly  notice,  but  receiving  it  in  the  shape 
of  a  shilling,  the  lowest  deposit,  at  any  time  and  any  day, 
Sunday  of  course  excepted."  The  career  of  Guthrie,  as 
well  as  that  of  Chalmers  and  of  Norman  McLeod,  with 
their  demonstrated  ability  to  manage  men  and  to  handle 
the  complex  administrative  interests  of  a  parish,  illus- 
trates the  value  for  the  minister  of  business  training.  It 
was  during  this  Arbirlot  ministry  of  seven  years  that 
Guthrie  laid  the  foundation  for  his  future  success  in  all 
lines  of  ministerial  activity,  and  it  demonstrates  that  the 


358       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

man  who  is  successful  in  small  things  will  be  called  to 
greater  things.  He  made  careful  preparation  for  the 
pulpit.  He  discharged  with  scrupulous  fidelity  the  little 
duties  of  a  parish  pastor,  recognizing,  as  every  high- 
minded,  right-hearted  Christian  minister  should  and  will, 
the  great  value  to  his  ministry  of  the  "  cure  of  souls," 
thus  elevating  the  religious  life  of  his  church,  while  he 
threw  himself  with  undiminished  enthusiasm  into  the 
broader  spheres  of  church  extension  and  of  ecclesiastical 
and  moral  reform. 

The  patronage  question,  in  which  he  was  subse- 
quently to  have  a  most  prominent  part,  was  already 
before  the  churches,  when,  in  1830,  he  took  this  coun- 
try parish.  The  conflict  began  in  earnest,  however, 
four  years  later.  He  had  studied  it  from  the  outset, 
and  his  position  had  already  been  taken  with  the  "  High 
Flyers,"  as  the  Evangelicals  were  called.  The  primary 
question  in  this  conflict  was  whether  the  church  as  a 
spiritual  body  had  an  inalienable  and  indefeasible  moral 
right  to  restrict  the  patron  in  his  legal  right  to  nominate 
ministerial  candidates  to  the  churches.  It  subsequently 
involved  the  larger  and  allied  question,  whether  the 
state  had  the  right  to  obtrude  itself  upon  a  church  by 
forcing  an  undesirable  candidate  upon  it.  The  question, 
therefore,  was  whether  the  state  had  a  right  to  under- 
take the  management  of  affairs  that  belong  to  the  church 
as  a  spiritual  body.  The  Moderate  party,  then  in  the 
ascendant,  in  general  claimed  this  right  of  obtrusion 
for  the  state.  The  EvangeHcals,  under  the  lead  of 
Chalmers  and  Guthrie,  denied  the  right  and  opposed 
the  claim.  Guthrie's  position,  which  he  defended  with 
much  skill  and  force,  was  that  the  church  as  a  spiritual 


CHARACTER  AND  CAREER  359 

society,  whose  supreme  head  is  Christ,  whose  office- 
bearer holds  his  credentials  from  Christ,  and  whose 
charter  is  the  Bible,  had  the  right  to  manage  its  own 
affairs  so  far  as  they  relate  to  its  spiritual  interests. 
The  patron  has  no  right  to  appoint  candidates  without 
the  free  and  full  consent  of  the  church.  Guthrie  was  a 
loyal  son  of  the  Established  church,  and  was  not  dis- 
posed to  break  with  it.  Accordingly,  when  the  ques- 
tion of  dissolving  the  relation  between  the  church  and 
the  state,  in  the  so-called  "voluntary"  controversy 
which  preceded  the  *'  anti-patronage  "  controversy,  he 
espoused  the  cause  of  the  Establishment.  This  posi- 
tion he  was,  of  course,  subsequently  obliged  to  abandon, 
but  he  always  remained  a  believer  theoretically  in  a 
state  church.  This  question  of  the  perpetuation  of  the 
state  church,  which  was  involved  in  the  "voluntary'' 
controversy,  had  already  brought  Guthrie  during  his 
early  ministry  into  prominence.  Dr.  Chalmers  had 
already  entered  upon  his  "  church  extension  "  movement. 
His  object  was  to  make  the  Established  church  more 
effective.  He  would  abolish  the  old  collegiate  system, 
in  accordance  with  which  the  ecclesiastical  community 
was  divided  into  large  parishes,  and  each  parish  placed 
under  the  supervision  of  two  associate  pastors.  Chal- 
mers would  multiply  the  number  of  parishes  and 
churches,  and  thus  increase  the  centres  of  moral  and 
spiritual  power  and  make  them  more  effective,  placing 
each  parish  in  charge  of  one  pastor  and  holding  him 
responsible  for  effective  leadership.  He  would  have 
the  parish  work  organized  with  such  care  that  all  the 
members  of  the  parish,  rich  and  poor  alike,  should  be 
brought  under  the  influence  of  the  church.     It  was  an 


360       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ecclesiastical  movement  for  the  purpose  of  increasing 
the  number  of  churches,  and  of  strengthening  the 
Evangelical  party ;  it  was  a  philanthropic  movement  for 
the  purpose  of  reaching  the  unchurched  classes ;  and  it 
was  above  all  a  religious  movement  for  the  purpose  of 
strengthening  and  enriching  the  spiritual  life  of  the  whole 
church.  Guthrie  had  already  arrested  the  attention  of 
Dr.  Chalmers.  His  effectiveness  as  a  pulpit  and  platform 
orator,  his  pastoral  zeal,  his  executive  enterprise,  his 
evangelistic  skill  and  enthusiasm,  his  devotion  to  the 
cause  of  evangelical  Christianity,  and  his  interest  in  the 
questions  that  were  in  agitation  had  already  brought 
him  into  prominence,  and  had  won  the  high  esteem  of 
the  great  leader.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  he 
should  be  wanted  in  Edinburgh.  A  highly  successful 
country  pastor,  and  sincerely  attached  to  his  simple 
country  parish,  he  nevertheless  had  all  the  appoint- 
ments, and  he  cherished  a  distinct  admiration  for  the 
role  of  the  popular  city  pastor.  He  had  a  certain 
fondness  for  the  natural  scenery  of  the  country,  but  he 
loved  the  life  of  the  city  more,  and  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  sentiment  of  Cowper,  that  "  God  made  the 
country,  but  man  made  the  town."  His  philanthropic 
instincts  especially  inclined  him  toward  the  city  parish, 
where  he  might  reach  the  unchurched  masses.  He 
was  wanted  at  Old  Gray  Friars  in  Edinburgh,  and  he 
accepted  a  call  there  with  the  understanding  that  a 
church  should  be  built  for  him  as  soon  as  possible,  over 
which  he  should  be  placed  in  sole  charge,  and  where  he 
might  attempt  to  put  in  operation  Chalmers's  parochial 
system,  and  work  out  the  problem  of  parish  evangeliza- 
tion.    The   church   known   as  St.   John's  was  accord- 


CHARACTER   AND   CAREER  36 1 

ingly  built  for  him ;  and  after  a  three  years'  ministry  at 
Gray  Friars  on  the  collegiate  basis,  he  entered  upon  his 
more  distinctively  philanthropic  career  in  the  poorest 
quarter  of  Edinburgh.  The  city  was  well  supplied  with 
able  preachers,  and  it  was  the  home  of  many  illustrious 
men  who  had  made  a  name  for  themselves  in  Hterature, 
in  science,  and  in  the  various  professions.  Drs.  CandHsh, 
Cunningham,  and  Charles  Brown  occupied  prominent 
positions  in  the  pulpit  and  in  church  leadership.  Dr. 
Chalmers  was  at  the  university,  at  the  height  of  his 
popularity  and  power.  Lord  Jeffrey,  the  leader  in  litera- 
ture, was  there,  and  Lord  Cockburn,  the  leader  at  the 
bar ;  and  it  was  no  slight  task  for  any  man  to  win  the 
ear  of  the  cultivated  classes,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
minister  successfully  to  the  poor  and  degraded  people 
of  the  parish.  But  this  was  what  Guthrie  did.  His 
ministry  of  twenty-seven  years,  from  1837  to  1864,  was 
marked  by  a  popularity  that  was  undiminished  and 
that  surpassed  that  of  any  man  in  Scotland.  Under  the 
most  stimulating  influences  he  developed  rapidly  his 
peculiar  gifts  as  a  pulpit  and  platform  orator,  and  as  a 
philanthropist  and  ecclesiastical  leader.  It  was  during 
the  first  six  years  of  his  ministry  at  St.  John's  that  the 
disruption  of  the  Established  church  took  place.  In 
that  movement  he  was,  doubtless,  Chalmers  of  course 
excepted,  the  most  popular  and  effective  leader.  His 
abiHty  as  a  platform  orator  brought  him  into  great 
prominence  in  furthering  the  organization  of  the  Free 
churches,  and  particularly  in  raising  funds  to  provide 
homes  for  the  ministers  of  these  churches.  So  impor- 
tant was  his  influence  in  pastoral,  parochial,  philan- 
thropic, and   educational  work,  in  connection  with  his 


362       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

work  as  a  preacher,  that  reference  must  be  made  to  it 
in  another  connection. 

The  demands  of  his  position  upon  him  led  him  con- 
stantly and  ever  more  completely  into  a  type  of  pulpit 
speech  of  which  he  was  easily  the  most  eminent  repre- 
sentative of  his  day  in  Great  Britain.  With  ever  in- 
creasing zeal  and  devotion  he  gave  himself  to  his  tasks, 
and  with  ever  increasing  influence,  publishing,  as  he 
was  able  to  find  time,  the  results  of  his  work  in  sermons, 
pamphlets,  and  monographs  of  a  philanthropic  sort,  like 
his  "  Pleas  for  the  Ragged  Schools,"  which  is,  perhaps, 
his  most  striking  and  permanently  valuable  literary  prod- 
uct ;  and  in  1864  he  was  obliged  to  lay  down  his  burden, 
for  the  heart  could  no  longer  bear  the  strain.  He  be- 
came editor  of  the  Sunday  Magazine,  to  which  he  him- 
self contributed  copiously  till  his  death,  nine  years  later, 
in  1873.  The  published  results  of  his  work  appear  in 
sixteen  volumes,  which  for  their  substance  of  thought 
are  of  no  permanent  value,  and  for  their  literary  quali- 
ties might  not  find  response  in  the  tastes  of  our  time, 
but  have  a  certain  attractiveness  in  their  vivacity  of 
style,  and  many  of  them  are  worth  knowing  because 
they  embody  the  results  of  his  work  as  a  philanthropist. 
It  is  in  this  aspect  that  his  claim  upon  our  attention  is 
preeminent.  Guthrie's  significance  for  the  modern  pul- 
pit is  in  his  popular  interpretation  of  Christianity,  and 
in  his  practical  application  of  it  to  the  needs  of  the  poor 
and  unfortunate. 


A  POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC  PREACHER   363 

II 

GUTHRIE  AS   A  POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC  PREACHER 

We  cannot  rely  upon  Guthrie's  published  products  for 
an  adequate  conception  of  his  influence  as  a  preacher. 
The  impressions  he  made  were  vivid,  but  they  were  not 
educative  and  are  not  suggestive  of  permanence.  His 
preaching  should  be  considered  in  connection  with  his 
life  work.  Let  us,  therefore,  look  at  the  man,  the  pas- 
tor, and  the  philanthropist,  then  at  the  material,  struc- 
ture, and  rhetorical  form  of  the  sermon,  and  in  the  light 
of  the  whole  we  shall  perhaps  be  the  better  able  to 
estimate  his  significance  as  a  preacher. 

I.  The  personality  of  the  man  was  marked.  He  had 
the  full  physical  equipment  of  an  impressive  pulpit  ora- 
tor. He  was  a  tall,  broad-shouldered  Scotchman,  with 
a  dark  complexion,  black  hair  in  early  years,  touched 
into  an  iron-gray  as  years  advanced,  deep-set  gray  eyes, 
long,  prominent  nose,  and  thin,  mobile  lips.  Thus  he  is 
described.  So  far  as  impressive  oratory  is  conditioned 
by  physical  gifts,  these  are  among  the  desirable  appoint- 
ments. It  is  said  of  him  that  he  had  "  an  abundance 
of  easy  and  powerful,  because  natural,  gesture,  a  quickly 
and  strongly  impressive  countenance,  which  age  ren- 
dered finer,  as  well  as  more  comely,  ...  a  powerful, 
clear,  and  musical  voice,  the  intonations  of  which  were 
varied  and  appropriate,  managed  with  an  actor's  skill, 
though  there  was  not  the  least  appearance  of  art." 
Lord  Cockburn  says  of  him  that  **he  was  passionate 
without  vehemence.  His  language  and  accent  were  very 
Scotch,  but  nothing  can  be  less  vulgar,  and  his  gesture 


364       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

is  the  most  graceful  I  have  ever  seen  in  any  public 
speaker.  Everything  he  does  glows  with  a  frank,  gal- 
lant warm-heartedness  often  rendered  more  delightful 
by  a  boyish  simplicity  of  air  and  style."  This  boyish 
frankness,  freedom,  intensity,  and  joviality  always  lin- 
gered with  him,  although  he  rigidly  excluded  all  un- 
seemly exhibitions  of  it  in  the  pulpit.  But  taking  this 
temperament  into  the  pulpit  and  giving  it  proper  range, 
he  had  the  greater  power  as  a  preacher.  No  gloomy 
view  of  life  ever  darkened  his  message  or  shadowed  his 
influence.  He  was  a  man  of  Scotch  sense.  He  had, 
indeed,  a  poetic  fancy  of  a  sort,  not  of  the  highest  order, 
a  little  garish,  a  trifle  strained  and  remote  in  its  uses, 
but  vivid  and  striking,  and  doubtless  it  was  one  of  his 
chief  elements  of  power.  But  he  was  preeminently 
Scotch  in  his  practical  understanding,  a  man  of  sound 
judgment,  of  executive  force,  who  knew  men  and  had 
a  most  vigorous  and  boundlessly  tactful  handling  of 
them.  In  the  realm  of  objective  reality  he  had  ex- 
traordinary clearness  of  discrimination  and  never  blun- 
dered in  his  dealing  with  facts.  He  lacked  intellectual 
subtlety,  and  in  the  speculative  realm  was  not  discrim- 
inating or  profound.  He  dealt  with  the  surface  and 
commonplace  aspects  of  things.  He  reflects  much, 
moralizes  much,  upon  Hfe ;  but  his  reflections  are  some- 
what too  obvious  and  sometimes  almost  platitudinous. 
He  touches  his  moralizings  into  attractiveness  by  his 
vivid  fancy,  and  his  good  sense  never  deserts  him. 
Under  all  his  pulpit  pyrotechnics  there  is  a  vein  of 
shrewd  common  sense  which  proves  him  the  typical 
Scotchman.  He  could  not  to  any  very  considerable 
extent  instruct,  and  he  had  nothing  particularly  new  to 


A   POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC   PREACHER        365 

say.  He  glorified  the  familiar  and  never  took  hold  of 
the  depths  of  truth.  The  deeper  places  of  the  human 
spirit  he  could  not  reach,  save  as  now  and  then  he 
flashed  his  way  into  them  by  his  sympathies  and  by  his 
pathos ;  but  he  could  paint  what  lies  at  the  surface  of 
life  and  could  make  it  attractive  and  worthy  of  eager 
attention. 

The  Scotchman  is  essentially  a  realist.  His  philoso- 
phy is  that  of  common  sense,  and  he  discloses  it  in  his 
literature,  in  his  theology,  and  in  his  preaching,  as  in  all 
else.  Guthrie  had  the  realistic  habit  of  his  countrymen. 
He  was  a  man  of  genuine  and  generous  sympathies, 
which  disclosed  themselves  in  his  domestic  life,  which 
was  one  of  rare  affection  and  devotion,  in  his  social  in- 
tercourse, his  pastoral  care  of  souls,  his  philanthropic 
endeavors,  and  in  his  preaching.  He  was  an  ideal 
city  pastor.  He  loved  the  rush  and  excitement  and 
human  passion  of  city  life,  and  he  was  peculiarly  fitted 
to  mingle  in  its  scenes  of  sin  and  sorrow  as  the  bishop 
of  souls.  He  had  not  the  aesthetic  endowment  of  Nor- 
man McLeod.  He  "  loved  the  garish  scene."  It  fur- 
nished images  for  his  rushing  rhetoric.  This  discloses 
his  leading  quality.  He  was  a  man  of  action,  not  of 
reflection ;  a  man  of  "  tasks,"  not  of  "visions."  Because 
he  was  a  man  of  genuine  sympathies,  he  loved  the  good 
opinion  and  the  good  will  of  his  fellows.  He  was  too 
sensible  a  man  to  be  unmanned  by  flattery.  He  was 
too  genuine  a  man  and  too  sound  a  Calvinist  to  regard 
himself  as  entitled  to  human  adulation.  But  he  had  a 
good  deal  of  that  guileless  amour  propre  that  char- 
acterizes some  of  his  countrymen,  and  is  naturally  fos- 
tered by  the  high  esteem  in  which  the  Scottish  minister 


366       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

is  held  by  the  people.  He  had  a  very  decided  respect 
for  men  of  rank,  and  a  very  innocent  relish  of  their  per- 
sonal friendship,  which  he  was  just  a  little  inclined  to 
advertise.  He  once  said  of  himself  that  he  was  half 
inclined  to  believe  that  he  was  cut  out  for  a  nobleman. 
If  he  had  been  gifted  with  more  of  Carlyle's  stalwart 
Scotch  individualism,  he  would  have  despised  all  this. 
But  after  all,  this  guileless  self-love  was  the  reflex  of  his 
love  for  his  fellow-men,  and  he  even  turned  it  to  the 
advantage  of  his  ministry,  as  the  late  Dr.  Joseph  Parker 
did  in  a  more  obtrusive  manner  and  on  a  more  exten- 
sive scale,  and  it  became  a  condition  of  the  greater  effec- 
tiveness in  his  dealing  with  men.  With  all  his  reverence 
for  rank  he  had  a  genuine  love  for  all  classes  of  men, 
and  was  in  an  eminent  degree  the  friend  of  the  poor. 
He  was  a  man  in  earnest,  and  such  a  man  can  never 
lose  himself  in  the  idolatries  of  the  people.  This  moral 
earnestness  he  exhibited  in  the  pulpit,  as  elsewhere. 
It  is . interesting  to  read  of  the  ''hush  of  expectation 
on  the  upturned  faces  of  the  people  as,  entering  from 
a  side  door,  the  preacher  is  seen  pressing  with  eager 
steps  through  the  crowd  who  fill  the  passage  from  the 
vestry  to  the  pulpit,"  and  of  the  "  swing  of  the  broad 
shoulders,  the  face  bent  forward,  the  look  of  earnestness 
on  the  flushed  countenance,  all  telling  of  a  man  who 
feels  that  he  has  come  forth  on  an  important  errand  and 
is  straitened  till  it  be  accomplished."  This  combination 
of  physical,  emotional,  moral,  and  religious  intensity,  this 
capacity  to  be  wrought  upon  in  all  the  elements  of  his 
manhood,  measurably  by  the  power  of  the  truth  in  his 
own  heart,  more  largely,  perhaps,  by  the  images  of  truth 
that  sprang  from  his  exuberant  fancy  and  by  the  human 


A   POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC  PREACHER        367 

beings  of  all  classes  that  hung  upon  his  lips,  —  this,  in 
large  measure,  lets  us  into  the  secret  of  his  influence  over 
men.  It  is  a  living  man.  It  is  the  subtle,  occult,  pene- 
trating force  of  a  vivacious,  joyful,  friendly,  sympathetic 
human  personality,  alive  all  through. 

2.  The  influence  of  Guthrie's  pastoral  and  philan- 
thropic activity  upon  his  pulpit  work  must  also  be  taken 
into  account.  As  we  have  seen,  Guthrie  was  a  man  of 
extraordinary  pastoral  effectiveness,  of  general  adminis- 
trative ability,  of  philanthropic  activity  and  ecclesiastical 
enterprise,  and  here  lie  the  most  permanent  results  of 
his  work.  The  Free  church  movement  was  especially 
indebted  to  him.  St.  John's  church,  which,  under  his 
leadership,  was  among  the  first  to  commit  itself  to  the 
Free  church  movement,  was  designed  for  the  poor  and 
was  located  in  one  of  the  poorest  quarters  of  the  city, 
near  which  he  fixed  his  own  residence.  In  his  congre- 
gation there  were,  indeed,  some  of  the  most  intelligent 
and  cultivated  people  of  Edinburgh,  whom  he  greatly 
interested  and  strongly  influenced.  And  it  was  a  fortu- 
nate thing  for  him  as  a  preacher  that  he  was  obliged  to 
meet  such  people  in  his  congregation.  But  his  audience 
was  composed  largely  of  plain  people,  and  even  of  the 
very  poor,  and  he  did  not  fail  to  preach  to  them  accord- 
ing to  the  measure  of  their  intelligence.  He  had  begun 
his  ministry  with  the  effort  to  reach  the  common  people, 
and  he  went  to  Edinburgh  because  he  could  do  a  larger 
work  among  them.  His  early  style  of  preaching  was 
plain  and  homely,  entirely  lacking  in  the  descriptive 
quality  which  subsequently  characterized  it,  and  the 
thought  was  somewhat  familiar  in  its  conscientious 
Scotch  orthodoxy.     But  he  found  himself  in  his  efforts 


368       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

to  reach  the  common  people.  It  is  not  an  uncommon 
thing  for  preachers  to  find  themselves  in  this  free,  un- 
conventional, illustrative  style  of  speech,  and  no  better 
school  for  the  culture  of  it  could  be  found  than  the  cate- 
chetical class  where  Guthrie  found  it.  It  was  his  persist- 
ent purpose  to  do  his  best  under  all  conditions,  and  in 
this  Guthrie's  example  and  influence  have  been  very 
salutary. 

But  the  point  in  hand  is  that  his  preaching  was  pas- 
toral in  its  character  and  that  it  was  directly  influenced 
and  wholly  conditioned  by  the  manifest  needs  of  his 
congregation.  He  learned  from  the  members  of  his  con- 
gregation, as  he  visited  them  in  the  parish,  what  most 
impressed  them  in  his  preaching,  and  made  careful  note 
of  it.  His  experience  in  mercantile  life  has  already  been 
spoken  of,  and  its  influence  upon  his  parish  work.  But 
it  had  also  an  indirect  influence  upon  his  pulpit  work. 
His  pastoral  type  of  preaching  took  largely  the  evan- 
gelistic form,  and  he  is  a  worthy  example  of  the  effec- 
tive pastoral  evangelist.  He  always  sought  to  make  an 
impression  upon  the  conscience  and  heart  to  win  men's 
allegiance  to  Christ,  and  to  strengthen  them  in  it.  So 
strong  in  intent  was  the  emotional  interest  and  so  strong 
in  result  the  emotional  impression,  that  the  intellectual 
and  even  ethical  interest  were  sometimes  sacrificed  to  it. 
A  substantial,  permanent  moral  result  he  certainly  had 
sincerely  at  heart ;  but  so  intent  was  he  upon  an  imme- 
diate and  vivid  impression,  that  he  must  sometimes 
have  failed  of  the  desired  effect,  if  indeed  he  did  not 
sometimes  lose  sight  of  it.  This  is  the  defect  of  what 
we  call  sensational  preaching,  even  of  the  better  type. 
There  is  a  disproportionate  impression  upon  the  imag- 


A  POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC  PREACHER    369 

ination  and  the  emotions.  With  respect  to  simplicity, 
directness,  and  deep,  strong,  moral  purpose,  the  preach- 
ing of  Guthrie  does  not  impress  us  as  that  of  Spurgeon 
does,  and  it  may  be  questioned  whether  the  results  of 
his  preaching  were  not  meagre,  as  compared  with  those 
of  Mr.  Spurgeon's  preaching,  useful  as  he  was  in  his 
evangelistic  work.  As  an  orator,  capable  of  producing 
powerful,  immediate  impressions,  Spurgeon  is  not  his 
equal.  But  Guthrie  plays  with  his  rhetoric.  In  general 
the  aim  of  the  two  men  is  the  same.  It  is  to  present 
the  gospel  in  such  way  that  it  will  strike  home  at  once. 
But  the  methods  are  very  different  and  the  results  dif- 
ferent. Spurgeon  deals  more  largely  with  truth  in  im- 
mediate Bibhcal  form.  It  is  indeed  colored  by  the  crass 
literalism  of  the  school  in  which  he  was  trained.  But 
the  matter  and  the  style  are  Biblical  and  the  single 
aim  is  always  manifest.  Guthrie  was,  in  his  way,  a  Bib- 
lical preacher,  as  most  Scottish  preachers  are,  but  his 
Biblical  material  is  strongly  colored  by  his  rhetoric,  and 
the  thought  often  seems  subordinate  to  the  flamboyant 
style  in  which  it  appears.  Guthrie  is  one  of  those 
preachers  who  is  sure  to  draw  the  fire  of  the  critic. 
And  yet  he  was  an  effective  evangelistic  preacher. 

But  the  point  in  hand  here  is  that  his  work  was  con- 
ditioned by  what  he  recognized  as  the  needs  of  his 
hearers.  The  volume  entitled  "  The  City,  its  Sins  and 
Sorrows  "  is  one  of  the  treasured  results  of  his  personal 
contact  with  suffering  human  Hfe,  necessitated  by  his 
work  as  the  pastor  of  the  poor.  The  three  monographs 
in  which  he  makes  a  plea  for  the  ragged  schools 
which  he  was  instrumental  in  establishing  in  Edinburgh, 
that  have  been  gathered  into  one  volume,  are  another 

2B 


370      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

product  in  literary  form  of  his  experiences  with  the  lower 
classes  in  city  life.  These  volumes  disclose  in  a  notable 
manner  his  power  of  pathos,  in  which  the  London  Times 
declared  him  to  be  peerless  among  British  preachers. 
This  contact  with  the  lower  phases  of  life  deepened  his 
human  sympathies  and  intensified  his  sense  of  the  need 
of  reaching  the  hearts  of  men  through  their  imagina- 
tions. His  life  as  a  churchman  also  and  the  demands 
upon  him  for  platform  oratory,  in  which  he  exceeded  all 
other  Scottish  preachers  of  his  day,  became  tributary  to 
his  pulpit  work.  He  was  in  fact  essentially  a  platform 
orator,  who  carried  the  method  of  the  platform  into  the 
pulpit.  His  work  as  a  philanthropist  led  him  in  the 
same  general  direction.  All  became  tributary  to  his 
effectiveness  as  a  preacher.  The  cause  of  the  poor,  of 
temperance,  of  education,  of  missions,  of  needy  minis- 
ters, of  church  extension,  of  ecclesiastical  freedom,  —  all 
the  great  interests  of  mankind,  no  one  of  which  was  for- 
eign to  him,  and  to  all  of  which,  as  he  came  into  connec- 
tion with  them,  he  devoted  himself  with  untiring  zeal, 
found  in  him  a  most  effective  pulpit  advocate.  He  was 
a  faithful  and  trusted  pastor,  earnestly  devoted  to  the 
"  cure  of  souls,"  according  to  the  best  approved  Scottish 
custom ;  a  wise  church  leader,  especially  trusted  during 
the  last  fifteen  years  of  his  pastoral  life  for  his  increas- 
ing breadth  of  vision,  largeness  of  spirit,  and  practical 
tact ;  but  always  in  an  eminent  degree  the  friend  of  the 
poor  and  suffering,  wherever  they  were  to  be  found, 
gathering  the  inspirations  of  his  pathos  from  the  scenes 
of  distress  with  which  he  was  constantly  familiar.  That 
any  true  preacher  should  fail  to  see  that  the  persuasive 
power  of  the  pulpit  is  dependent  upon  pastoral  Hfe  in 


A  POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC  PREACHER   371 

the  cure  of  souls  and  in  philanthropic  devotion  to  the 
suffering,  and  that  any  one  should  be  willing  to  surren- 
der such  a  condition  of  power  over  the  human  soul,  is 
amazing.  To  isolate  the  pulpit  from  the  parish  and 
from  the  larger  world  of  needy  human  life,  to  withdraw 
from  the  struggling  world  into  selfish  isolation,  or  to  de- 
vote one's  self  to  philanthropy  merely  as  a  big  administra- 
tive enterprise  at  a  safe  distance  from  suffering  individual 
life,  is  to  "  cut  the  nerve  "  of  pulpit  power.  The  man 
who  does  this  deserves  to  fail,  as  he  will  fail,  and  the 
church  that  tolerates  it  should  perish.  He  is  the  best 
preacher  in  our  day  who  is  most  familiar  with  human 
life.  There  never  was  a  time  in  the  history  of  the 
Christian  pulpit  when  there  was  such  a  demand  for 
close  contact  with  human  life  as  now.  It  was  the 
strength  and  the  glory  of  the  Evangelical  movement  in 
Scotland,  of  which  Guthrie  was  in  some  sort  the  most 
effective  representative,  that  it  took  Christianity  away 
from  the  realm  of  abstract  thought  and  of  literary  dilet- 
tanteism  into  the  depths  of  human  life.  Thomas  Guthrie 
and  Norman  McLeod  kept  the  fountains  of  human  feel- 
ing constantly  astir,  and  won  much  of  that  power  to 
move  men  that  was  peculiar  to  them  from  familiar 
intercourse  with  the  needy  world. 

3.  The  material  and  structural  elements  of  Guthrie's 
preaching  must  enter  into  our  estimate  of  it.  In  the 
material  but  not  in  the  formal  sense  of  the  term  he 
was  a  Biblical  preacher.  Biblical  themes  always  fur- 
nish the  basis  of  his  discussion.  Biblical  topics  entered 
to  a  considerable  extent  into  the  process  of  development. 
Biblical  characters  and  incidents  were  largely  used  as 
illustrative  material,  citations  of  individual  Biblical  pas- 


3/2       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

sages  were  not  infrequent,  and  a  Biblical  tone  pervaded 
the  whole.  But  he  was  a  topical  rather  than  a  textual 
or  expository  preacher.  In  interpreting  the  Scriptures 
he  always  selects  the  main  topics  of  his  passage  for 
discussion,  and  instead  of  subjecting  them  to  critical 
analysis  and  unfolding  the  thought  of  the  writer,  he 
seizes  upon  their  practical  aspects  for  the  purpose  of 
moral  inculcation  and  incentive.  He  finds  in  the  literary 
form  of  the  passage  a  stimulus  for  his  own  imagination, 
and  the  entire  discourse  addresses  itself  to  the  fancy 
and  the  feeling  of  the  hearer  rather  than  to  his  power 
of  reflection.  The  aim  is  to  stimulate  to  moral  action 
rather  than  to  edify  by  enrichment  of  Christian  knowl- 
edge. His  method  is  the  method  of  accommodation, 
and  shows  no  results  of  modern  Biblical  scholarship. 
But  BibHcal  discourses  like  those  found  in  "  The  Gospel 
in  Ezekiel,"  **  Christ  and  the  Inheritance  of  the  Saints," 
and  "  The  Parables  "  are  full  of  valuable  practical  sug- 
gestions, are  strong  in  moral  incentive  and  brilliantly 
vivacious  in  rhetorical  form.  The  substance  of  the 
sermon,  however,  is  definitely  influenced  by  his  theologi- 
cal point  of  view,  as  will  naturally  be  the  case  with  any 
man  who  has  any  theology  which  he  regards  as  worth 
while.  Guthrie  was  not  a  theologian,  yet  he  had  his 
theology,  and  it  lies  in  the  background  in  all  of  his 
Biblical  preaching.  He  holds,  although  in  a  moderate 
and  reasonable  way,  the  dogmatic  point  of  view,  from 
which  it  seems  impossible  for  all  Scottish  preachers 
who  have  not  been  trained  in  modern  methods  of  think- 
ing to  emancipate  themselves.  His  preaching  was 
wholesomely,  and  it  must  be  acknowledged  on  the  whole 
reasonably,  evangeUcal,  but  it  was  such  according  to  the 


A  POPULAR   EVANGELISTIC   PREACHER        373 

type  of  a  moderate  Scotch  Calvinism.  It  is  a  type  of 
theology  with  which  the  Scottish  people  are  familiar 
and  which  they  like  to  hear.  They  call  it  the  simple 
gospel,  however  remote  in  fact  it  may  be  from  ''the 
simplicity  that  is  in  Christ,"  because  they  have  been 
educated  in  it  and  because  it  has  a  familiar  sound. 
Guthrie  was  a  man  of  noble,  catholic  spirit,  a  man, 
in  fact,  ahead  of  his  time  in  tolerance  and  high-minded- 
ness.  But  he  was  not  the  man  to  break  with  tradi- 
tional Scottish  theology.  He  had  neither  the  equipment 
nor  the  disposition  for  it.  It  is  his  philanthropy,  rather 
than  his  theology,  although  the  latter  is  of  a  suffi- 
ciently moderate  type,  that  shows  the  trace  of  the 
modern  humanistic  spirit  and  culture.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence that  the  point  of  view  held  or  the  opinions  pro- 
pounded by  Thomas  Erskine  or  McLeod  Campbell 
ever  touched  him  or  had  much  meaning  for  him.  He  is 
not  the  man  to  part  company  with  his  hearers  in  any 
event,  and  he  is,  moreover,  manifestly  persuaded  that 
Calvinism  strikes  the  original  note  of  the  gospel.  There 
is  but  little  that  is  fresh  in  the  substance  of  his  thought. 
It  is  essentially  commonplace.  It  is  the  fresh  illustra- 
tion of  the  truth,  not  fresh  conception  of  it,  that  con- 
stitutes the  attractiveness  of  his  preaching.  Good  work 
this,  indeed,  for  any  man  —  this  work  of  making  famihar 
truth  interesting  by  the  freshness  of  the  form  in  which 
it  is  presented,  and  the  only  work,  very  likely,  in  which 
mqst  men  may  expect  to  succeed.  But  it  is  not  the 
most  vital  or  quickening  or  spiritually  helpful  preach- 
ing. There  certainly  are  religious  points  of  view  that 
bring  God  nearer  to  us,  and  that  make  Christianity 
more  real  and  more  reasonable,  but  they  belong  to  a 


374      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

realm  with  which  Dr.  Guthrie  was  not  familiar.  Not  in- 
frequently he  overpresses  Scripture  terms  in  the  interest 
of  his  Calvinistic  theology,  wresting  them  only  to  get 
what  he  has  put  into  them.  To  enforce  the  doctrine 
of  total  depravity  he  makes  Paul  teach  that  the  "carnal 
mind"  is  nothing  but  "enmity  against  God,"  enmity 
is  the  very  element  of  man's  unregenerate  life,  —  as  love 
is  the  element  of  God's  life.  Defect  in  the  spirit  of 
obedience  is  fully  developed  enmity.  In  the  same  way 
he  presses  Scripture  terms  to  make  them  teach  the 
doctrine  of  a  substitutionary  atonement.  His  repre- 
sentations of  future  punishment  are  highly  dramatic, 
and  Scripture  terms  here,  too,  are  overpressed  in  the 
interest  of  a  sensational  effectiveness.  His  world  is 
always  in  moral  peril,  and  he  finds  in  the  moral  situa- 
tion material  for  his  dramatic  representation.  Human 
life,  as  redeemed  in  Christ,  seems  to  have  no  such  effect 
upon  his  imagination  as  do  its  tragic  perils.  Yet  he 
treats  most  attractively  and  persuasively  the  love  of 
God  and  the  universality  of  the  atonement,  and  in  this 
he  shows  that  at  heart  he  had  broken  with  the  tradi- 
tional Calvinism  of  his  countrymen.  It  is  this  that 
draws  upon  his  noblest  sympathies  and  is  the  spring  of 
his  noblest  pathos.  The  doctrines  of  grace  are  the 
centre  of  his  teaching,  and  even  under  their  defective 
forms  of  representation  he  succeeds  in  showing  the 
heart  of  God  in  most  winsome  ways,  and  man's  work- 
ing relations  with  redemption  are  presented  in  the  truly 
Evangelical  spirit.  He  was  a  most  diHgent  worker, 
although  not  a  thorough  student  nor  a  reflective  thinker, 
and  his  attainments  were  only  in  the  line  of  general 
culture  and  knowledge.     There  is  a  lack  of  solid  sub- 


A  POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC   PREACHER        375 

stance  in  his  preaching.  There  is  more  heat  than 
light.  His  mind  is  objective  and  realistic.  He  dwells 
upon  external  relations  and  fails  to  enter  deeply  into  the 
inner  life.  One  suspects  that  he  never  reached  the  full 
measure  of  his  intellectual  power.  He  had  seemingly 
the  possibility  of  manly  strength,  but  he  did  not  de- 
velop it.  His  influence  upon  his  fellow-men,  however, 
was  great,  and  in  his  ecclesiastical  and  philanthropic 
activities  he  has  left  a  permanent  impression  upon 
his  age  and  country.  But  he  has  left  nothing  behind 
as  a  pulpit  teacher  that  will  be  of  permanent  value. 

As  regards  the  technique  of  the  sermon,  it  is  to  a 
considerable  extent  emancipated  from  homiletic  re- 
straints. It  is  off-hand  and  dashing  in  its  freedom  and 
moves  rapidly.  It  makes  a  vivid  impression,  sometimes 
a  series  of  comparatively  unrelated  impressions.  The 
introduction  is  always  striking,  and  approaches  the  sub- 
ject from  afar.  The  very  first  sentence  is  enigmatical 
in  its  apparent  unrelatedness.  The  remote  is  always 
interesting  in  so  far  as  it  stirs  the  mind  into  inquisitive- 
ness  and  puts  it  upon  the  search  for  what  is  to  follow. 
The  principle  of  gradual  approach,  therefore,  along 
lines  of  somewhat  remotely  related  thought  is  a  valuable 
one.  But  a  remoteness  that  is  far-fetched  overworks 
the  principle.  There  is  a  certain  externality,  almost  a 
suggestion  of  artificiality,  in  the  relations  of  Guthrie's 
thought.  There  is  a  lack  of  organic  quality  in  the 
development  of  the  sermon,  and  the  very  diction  some- 
times has  a  metallic  ring.  Artificial  combinations  of 
things  remote,  which  suggest  strained  effort  after  strik- 
ing effects,  are  not  uncommon.  From  the  text,  *'  The 
tree  is  known  by  its  fruit,"  he  has  a  sermon  entitled 


3/6      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

**  The  True  Test,"  and  this  is  the  introduction :  "  If 
there  shall  be  no  more  salvation  out  of  Christ  on  the 
day  of  judgment  than  was  found  on  that  day  when  the 
avenging  waters  pursued  the  shrieking  crowd  to  the  tops 
of  the  highest  hills  and  washed  off  the  last  living  man 
from  the  last  dry  spot  of  land,  how  important  for  us  to 
know  whether  we  are  in  Christ,  united  to  Him,  not  in 
name  and  by  profession  only,  but  in  deed  and  in  truth ! 
To  try  this  we  have  a  plain  and  infallible  test  in  these 
words  of  our  Lord,  'The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruit.' 
On  this  I  remark,  (i)  It  is  possible  to  ascertain  our  real 
state  and  character,"  etc.  This  certainly  is  far-fetched 
and  inharmonious.  The  dramatic  reference  to  the  Del- 
uge is  out  of  harmonious  relation  with  the  character  of 
the  text  and  with  the  thought  of  the  sermon.  But  it  is 
in  line  with  his  dramatic  instincts.  He  has  a  prevail- 
ingly tragic  conception  of  life,  and  likes  to  deal  with  its 
tragic  aspects.  In  the  sermon  above  referred  to  his 
thought  is  fetched  from  a  distance,  and  is  brought  into 
inharmonious  relations,  in  order  to  start  with  something 
that  is  striking.  There  is  a  certain  rhetorical  dash 
about  this  dramatic  quality  in  which  the  sermons  abound. 
There  are  elements  of  attractiveness  and  of  power  in  it. 
If  we  had  Hstened  to  the  man,  we  should  doubtless  have 
been  strongly  impressed,  despite  defects  of  method,  for 
it  is  the  man  that  carries  the  sermon.  But  to  the  criti- 
cal reader  there  is  a  suggestion  of  artificiality  about  it. 
The  sermon  does  not  unfold  itself  from  within,  hence 
the  thoughts  seem  to  lie  in  a  sort  of  external  juxtaposi- 
tion, rather  than  in  close,  inner  organic  relation.  It  is 
suggestive  of  patchwork.  We  think  of  the  homiletic 
carpenter.     In  his  avoidance  of  all  homiletic  formality, 


A  POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC  PREACHER        377 

he  makes  his  text  intimate  his  subject  by  frequent  repe- 
tition. He  is  not  definite  in  his  conception  or  statement 
of  his  theme,  and  he  sometimes  discusses  the  wrong 
theme.  The  development  of  the  sermon  is  often  con- 
fused and  inconsequential,  and  he  discusses  topics  that 
are  not  covered  by  his  theme  and  have  no  organic  rela- 
tion with  the  sermon.  In  all  this  there  is  abundant 
homiletic  freedom  and  an  easy  affectation  of  triumph 
over  homiletic  restraint.  But  it  is  not  highly  success- 
ful. The  brilliant  rhetoric  of  the  sermon  indeed  carries 
it,  but  the  sermon  would  have  carried  itself,  and  would 
have  carried  the  critical  hearer,  and  especially  the  criti- 
cal reader,  more  effectively  under  better  restraints  of 
well-approved  method.  The  sermon,  most  conscien- 
tiously wrought  out  indeed,  was  prepared  for  immediate 
effect,  and  seemingly  more  attention  was  given  to  rhe- 
torical form  than  to  substance  of  thought  or  to  method 
of  development. 

4.  We  are  led  thus  to  consider  Guthrie's  graphic 
style  as  perhaps  the  chief  source  of  his  pulpit  power. 
It  reminds  us  of  the  style  of  French  preachers  with 
whom  he  must  have  been  at  one  time  familiar.  It  was 
seemingly  impossible  for  Guthrie  to  say  anything  in  a 
plain,  non-rhetorical  manner.  Even  a  French  Parisian 
could  complain  of  his  lack  of  colloquial  simplicity,  of  a 
certain  "dress  parade  "  quality,  and  of  thought  so  objec- 
tive as  to  fail  to  reach  the  inner  life.  He  studied  those 
objects,  scenes,  and  events  that  would  furnish  pictorial 
and  dramatic  material  for  his  style,  —  the  ever  moving 
sea  with  its  shipping,  the  city  streets,  the  country  land- 
scape, the  family,  the  home,  the  mother,  the  absent  ones, 
royalty,  the  poor,  the  toiler,  the  battlefield.     Everything 


378       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

was  tributary  to  his  illustrative  style.  From  his  accu- 
rate descriptions  of  the  sea  some  one  inferred  that  he 
must  have  been  a  sailor  in  early  life.  He  had  studied 
representations  of  it.  In  fact,  he  overdid  the  study. 
He  gives  too  much  attention  to  his  illustrations.  He 
overillustrates.  His  illustrations  are  gathered  from  a 
great  variety  of  sources.  They  are  heaped  together 
and  add  nothing  to  the  interpretation  of  the  thought. 
They  represent  the  thought  in  various  forms,  but 
weaken  rather  than  strengthen  the  impression.  "  In 
preaching,"  he  says,  "mind  the  three  Ps,"  —  prove, 
paint,  persuade.  Speak  to  the  mind,  to  the  imagina- 
tion, and  to  the  heart  and  will.  He  did  scant  justice  to 
the  first.  His  strength  was  with  the  second.  His 
painting  was  doubtless  intended  to  be  tributary  to  the 
work  of  proving  and  persuading.  But  the  imagination 
received  stronger  impressions  than  the  understanding, 
and,  one  suspects,  stronger  impressions  than  the  will. 
He  was  certainly  not  a  successful  pulpit  teacher.  He 
meant  to  be  a  successful  advocate  and  persuader, 
and  doubtless  he  was.  But  he  was  above  all  a 
painter,  and  he  knew  himself  as  such.  What  another 
might  do  with  the  brush  or  the  chisel  he  knew  that  he 
could  do  with  the  pen.  He  found  that  it  is  the  picto- 
rial style  that  vividly  impresses  the  average  hearer,  and 
he  resolved  to  cultivate  it.  In  early  years  he  gave  no 
indication  of  what  subsequently  proved  to  be  his  distin- 
guishing gift.  His  style,  we  are  told,  was  "  absolutely 
unadorned,  stiff,  and  even  formal."  His  first  sermon 
was  read  from  manuscript,  but  he  resolved  to  abandon 
it  thenceforth,  and  he  adhered  faithfully  to  his  resolve. 
It  was  his  opinion  that  "  he  who  reads,  instead  of  deliv- 


A  POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC  PREACHER        379 

ering,  his  sermon,  looking  his  hearer  fairly  in  the  face, 
throws  away  a  great  advantage."  It  was  a  wise  resolve. 
He  preached  memoriter.  In  order  to  succeed  in  this 
he  was  accustomed  to  strike  out  all  that  could  not  easily 
be  remembered.  It  would  embarrass  him  in  his  work 
of  committing,  and  it  would  not,  he  thought,  readily 
impress  the  hearer.  Hence  also  his  habit  of  vocalizing 
as  he  wrote,  and  of  committing  in  silence.  He  never 
allowed  himself  to  vocalize  while  committing.  It  would 
unfavorably  affect  the  subsequent  delivery  of  the  ser- 
mon. One  fancies  that  this  habit  influenced  his  style. 
The  objects  of  thought,  as  they  appear  in  his  illustra- 
tions, are  placed  in  external  juxtaposition.  In  describ- 
ing, for  example,  the  process  of  physical  decay  he  takes 
the  different  parts  of  the  human  body  in  order,  so  that 
he  may  the  more  easily  remember  his  description,  —  the 
hair,  the  face,  the  arm,  the  lower  limbs,  then  the  body 
as  a  whole ;  and  then  in  order  follows  a  description  of 
the  failure  of  the  powers  of  the  soul.  The  same  thing 
appears  in  his  description  of  the  changes  of  nature. 
He  follows  the  order  of  the  seasons,  —  spring  with  its 
songs  of  birds,  summer  with  its  flowers,  autumn  with 
its  fruits  and  grains.  So  in  his  description  of  changes 
at  the  old  birthplace.  Here  are  new  faces  in  the  school, 
on  the  farm,  in  the  pulpit,  in  the  pews.  So  in  his 
sketch  of  the  changes  which  an  atom  of  matter  under- 
goes. This  atom  is  detached  from  the  rock  by  the  frost, 
goes  into  the  stream,  the  stream  takes  it  into  the  val- 
ley, the  stream  subsides  and  leaves  it  on  the  bank,  it 
goes  then  into  a  blade  of  grass,  the  grass  dies  and  gives 
it  to  the  flower,  the  moor-cock  crops  it  (note  the  poetic 
moor-cock),  the  eagle  catches  the  moor-cock  and  gets 


38o       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

possession  of  our  atom,  the  eagle  dies  and  gives  it  to 
the  pasture-land,  the  lamb  now  gets  hold  of  it,  some 
human  being  gets  hold  of  it  as  he  eats  the  lamb,  and 
now  at  last  it  becomes  the  possession  of  some  "  hand 
that  wields  a  sceptre,  or  the  locks  that  lend  grace  to 
beauty,  or  the  tongue  that  guides  the  counsels  of  a 
nation  or  proclaims  salvation."  Then  he  makes  a  move 
on  the  heavenly  bodies.  They  change.  The  planets  are 
now  here,  now  there ;  now  in  the  east  and  now  in  the 
west.  They  travel  regularly  in  order  that  his  thought 
may  travel  with  them.  And  this  whole  line  of  move- 
ment, descriptive  of  change,  ends  in  the  pole  star.  This 
is  the  only  steady  thing  in  the  entire  description,  and 
this  is  only  a  seeming  of  steadiness. 

Now,  what  the  pole  star  is  only  in  seeming,  that  is 
God  in  reality.  And  so,  after  this  whirKng  introductory 
dance,  we  have  at  last  reached  our  theme.  All  this  is 
doubtless  an  aid  to  the  memory,  but  it  is  overdone.  The 
style,  also,  is  diffuse  and  repetitious.  There  is  a  lack  of 
concentrated  vigor.  The  substance  of  the  sermon  is 
rather  thin,  and  the  thought  does  not  get  ahead.  There 
is,  moreover,  a  certain  artificial  glitter  of  decoration. 
The  illustrations  are  largely  from  the  gayer  scenes  of 
nature  and  of  life,  or  from  whatever  is  most  obtrusive  or 
familiar.  They  sometimes  suggest  observation  with 
conscious  reference  to  the  work  of  illustration,  and  they 
seem  thrust  on  from  without,  rather  than  naturally  sug- 
gested in  the  process  of  development.  He  compares, 
for  example,  the  appearance  of  sameness  in  the  midst 
of  nature's  changes  to  the  spinning  of  a  top  which 
keeps  it  from  faUing.  For  this  reason,  that  is,  by  rea- 
son of  the  far-fetched  and  artificial  character  of  the  illus- 


A  POPULAR  EVANGELISTIC  PREACHER        38 1 

trations,  his  preaching  lacks  in  beauty  of  organic  life. 
There  is  too  much  external  decoration.  That  canon  of 
artistic  taste,  and  of  ethical  judgment  as  well,  that  the 
details  of  a  picture  should  all  be  selected  with  reference 
to  the  central  theme  and  that  illustration  should  not  be 
so  obtrusive  that  we  lose  sight  of  the  thought  illustrated, 
was  violated  by  Dr.  Guthrie.  The  central  thought  is 
sometimes  obscured  rather  than  illuminated,  and  the 
central  impression  weakened  rather  than  strengthened, 
and  so  the  sermon  loses  in  real  power.  The  impression 
may  be  vivid,  but  it  is  not  matched  by  mental  and  moral 
strength.  It  is  true  that  men  of  learning  and  culture, 
as  well  as  rank,  listened  to  him  with  delight.  Hugh 
Miller  was  a  regular  attendant  at  his  church ;  Lord  Jef- 
frey had  a  sitting  there;  Sir  William  Hamilton  regarded 
him  as  the  best  preacher  he  ever  heard,  and,  when  re- 
minded that  he  was  deficient  in  logic,  replied,  "  He  has 
the  best  sort  of  logic,  there  is  but  a  step  between  his 
premise  and  his  conclusion."  This  surely  is  valuable 
testimony  as  to  his  impressiveness  as  a  preacher,  and 
his  power  to  hold  the  interest  of  intelligent  men,  and 
we  can  readily  accept  the  judgment  of  the  greatest  of 
English  journals  that  he  was  the  greatest  pulpit  ora- 
tor in  Great  Britain  and  the  greatest  master  of  pathos 
among  English-speaking  peoples.  And  we  can  see  the 
source  and  sort  of  impression.  It  was  his  great  dra- 
matic power,  and  it  illustrates  the  unquestionable  fact 
that  those  who  are  bearing  the  great  responsibilities  of 
life,  who  are  struggling  with  its  barriers  and  are  crushed 
by  its  burdens,  need  to  be  stirred  and  aroused  and  so 
strengthened  by  the  Christian  preacher.  The  pictorial 
and  dramatic  preacher  will  always  have  a  hearing,  and 


382       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

from  widely  different  classes.  Just  here  was  Guthrie's 
helpfulness.  He  illustrates  the  defects,  but  also  the  vir- 
tues, of  such  preaching.  Many  incidents  are  recorded 
illustrating  his  power  over  his  audiences.  Men  were 
literally  swept  from  their  seats  as  with  a  whirlwind  of 
dramatic  power.  They  so  far  forgot  themselves  that 
they  would  turn  and  shout  their  enthusiastic  admiration 
to  the  congregation.  Preachers  like  Chrysostom  and 
Beecher  often  spoke  to  audiences  that  applauded  them. 
But  Guthrie's  dramatizing  brought  them  to  their  feet, 
and  liberated  their  vocal  organs.  Behind  all  this  dra- 
matic intensity,  however,  there  was  a  serious  purpose. 
There  was  a  wise  head  and  a  manly  heart  there,  and  to 
bring  the  gospel  of  redemption  to  needy  men  in  direct 
and  vivid  appeal  was  the  preacher's  aim. 

It  is  idle  to  undertake,  after  all,  to  apply  the  tests  of 
cool  intellectual  criticism  to  such  preaching.  The  dra- 
matic gift  is  a  great  gift.  It  covers  a  multitude  of  de- 
fects. In  fact,  the  problem  of  all  preaching  is  how  to 
muster  the  resources  of  positive  power  sufficiently  to 
overbear  or  to  neutralize  the  defects.  Defects  there 
must  be,  but  the  power  that  can  move  men  and  can 
bring  them  into  allegiance  to  the  Master  of  life  can 
afford  to  carry  them.  Guthrie  will  be  remembered  for 
his  power  to  move  the  souls  of  men,  and  his  defects  will 
all  be  lost  in  the  unquestionable  excellency  of  his  work 
as  preacher  and  philanthropist.  To  every  man  his  work. 
If  a  man  can  dramatize  in  the  pulpit,  and  any  man  may 
well  covet  to  do  it,  let  him  assiduously  but  wisely  culti- 
vate his  gift,  for  it  may  be  made  worthy  of  the  end  for 
which  men  preach,  and  worthy  of  the  truth  that  should 
be  preached  with  persuasive  power  to  needy  men. 


CHAPTER   IX 

CHARLES   HADDON   SPURGEON 

Mr.  Spurgeon  was  a  characteristic  product  of  Eng- 
lish dissent.  It  is  true  that  in  his  dogmatic  provincial- 
ism, his  exegetical  crudeness,  and  his  intolerance  of  the 
modern  spirit  and  method,  which  he  never  understood, 
he  was  not  at  all  up  to  the  level  of  the  best  type  of 
nonconforming  preaching.  But  in  many  of  its  strongest 
and  most  effective  qualities,  he  was  a  true  child  of  Puri- 
tan dissent.  In  his  independence  of  spirit,  his  manly 
boldness,  his  sturdy  common  sense,  his  keen  insight 
into  ordinary  human  nature,  his  love  of  Biblical  truth, 
his  tact  in  catching  and  his  ingenuity  in  expounding  its 
salient,  practical  features,  his  concrete  habit  of  mind 
and  his  skill  in  illustration,  in  his  rhetorical  realism  and 
oratorical  directness  and  forcefulness,  he  was  preemi- 
nent among  its  modern  representatives.  Let  us  turn, 
then^  first  of  all  to  the  story  of  his  public  life  and  then 
to  his  preaching. 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE  PURITAN   PASTORAL 
EVANGELIST 

The  career  of  Spurgeon  has  for  us  all  the  interest 
of  a  problem  that  awakens  curiosity  and  challenges 
explanation.     He  was  doubtless  the  most  impressive 

383 


384       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

and  permanently  successful  evangelistic  preacher  of  his 
age.  With  relatively  meagre  preparatory  general  educa- 
tion, and  with  no  technical  training  of  the  schools,  he 
was  able,  before  he  was  twenty-one  years  of  age,  to 
win  and  hold  an  audience  of  from  eight  to  ten  thousand 
people  in  the  city  of  London.  For  long  periods  of 
time  in  succession  he  was  able  to  preach  every  day 
in  the  week,  and  continued  for  almost  forty  years  to 
minister  to  the  same  ever  enlarging  congregation  with 
apparently  unabated  interest  and  effectiveness,  despite 
his  physical  infirmities  and  his  parochial  and  extra-paro- 
chial administrative  work.  Such  a  man  is  hardly  less 
than  a  homiletic  prodigy.  No  man  who  is  interested  in 
effective  evangelistic  preaching  should  willingly  fail  to 
know  something  about  so  successful  and  useful  a 
preacher,  and  no  minister  can  well  afford  to  ignore  him 
or  to  refuse  to  avail  himself  of  the  incentive  which  a 
study  of  the  man  and  of  his  work  may  secure. 

In  race  descent  Mr.  Spurgeon  was  a  Dutchman,  by 
adoption  an  Englishman,  in  religious  education  and 
training  a  Quaker  and  Puritan  combined,  and  he  dis- 
closed many  of  the  characteristics  of  all  these  sources. 
His  remote  progenitors  were  refugees  in  the  period  of 
persecution  from  the  Netherlands,  who  fled  to  Essex 
County,  England,  where  he  was  born  in  1834.  In  his 
physical  personality  he  bears  the  mark  of  the  Dutchman. 
He  was  of  only  medium  height,  but  stocky  and  robust, 
with  a  countenance  unexpressive  in  repose,  but  forceful 
in  action.  His  resemblance  to  Macaulay  has  often  been 
noted.  One  of  his  ancestors  was  a  Quaker.  And  here 
we  have  the  sturdy  independence,  the  dogged  tenacity, 
and  somewhat  rude  common  sense  of  the  Dutchman, 


BUILDING   OF   THE   EVANGELIST  385 

with  something  of  the  unworldUness,  the  brooding  mys- 
ticism, the  subjective  piety,  and  the  uncompromising 
individualism  of  the  Quaker,  put  into  the  hands  of 
EngUsh  Puritanism  for  training.  It  was  good  soil  to 
cultivate,  and  the  husbandry,  according  to  its  kind,  was 
good.  That  it  fell  into  Puritan  hands  was  thoroughly 
appropriate.  Puritan  culture  developed  all  this  inborn 
independence  of  spirit,  common  sense.  Christian  reaHsm 
and  idealism  combined,  capacity  for  the  invisible,  sense 
of  the  abiding  presence  of  the  Holy  Spirit, — this  unworld- 
liness,  outspokenness,  and  straightforwardness.  His 
grandfather  was  a  Congregational  minister  with  a  Cal- 
vinistic  nurture  and  a  corresponding  theology.  He  was 
pastor  of  one  church  for  fifty-three  years,  and  was  able 
to  bear  the  remarkable  testimony  that  he  had  never 
suffered  an  hour's  unhappiness  in  his  personal  or  profes- 
sional relations  with  that  church,  —  a  testimony  not 
only  to  his  own  personal  character  and  intellectual  pro- 
ductiveness which  his  grandson  shared,  but  to  the  loy- 
alty of  an  English  Congregational  church,  which  in 
all  the  changes  of  modern  life  has  never  been  wholly 
lost.  With  this  sturdy  man,  who  believed  that  Calvin- 
ism was  the  original  gospel,  who  believed  propor- 
tionately in  the  reality  of  a  personal  devil,  and  who, 
like  Luther,  had  many  a  tussle  with  him,  the  grandson 
spent  much  of  his  time  in  early  years.  In  a  like  atmos- 
phere of  religious  reaHsm  he  was  nurtured  in  his  father's 
house,  and,  whatever  its  limitations,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
of  the  strength  and  value  of  this  influence  for  his  subse- 
quent career  as  a  preacher.  His  father,  although  a  lay- 
man and  a  business  man,  officiated  as  pastor  of  a 
Congregational  church.     In  this  Dutch-English,  Puritan 

2C 


386      REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

home,  he  was  subject  to  a  very  positive  religious  regime, 
and  attained  very  early  to  an  unusual  degree  of  moral 
and  religious  maturity.  In  undertaking  to  account  for 
the  interest  he  awakened  in  all  classes  of  people,  for  the 
stir  he  made  in  the  public  mind  whenever  his  presence 
was  announced,  and  for  his  wide-reaching  influence,  it 
should  be  first  of  all  remembered  that  he  was  a  man  of 
distinctive  religious  genius.  With  all  his  shrewd  com- 
mon sense,  which  served  him  so  well,  he  belonged 
primarily  to  the  realm  of  the  invisible.  He  was  a 
heavenly  minded  man,  done  up  in  rather  rough,  Dutch- 
Puritan  style,  and  the  prophecy  of  his  coming  religious 
usefulness  had  gone  before  him.  The  world  is  ready  to 
listen  to  such  a  man,  for  the  capacity  for  the  ideal  and 
invisible  has  never  been  lost  from  human  nature,  and  it 
only  awaits  its  embodiment  in  human  form.  Like  most 
men  of  religious  genius  he  was  early  inclined  to  isola- 
tion, loved  his  books  and  pictures  it  is  said,  was  odd  and 
individualistic,  and  had  a  strong  sense  of  vocation.  He 
became  familiar  with  Bunyan,  Baxter,  and  the  English 
Bible,  had  a  retentive  memory,  and  stored  what  he  read. 
A  sort  of  premonition  of  his  vocation  was  disclosed  at 
the  age  of  twelve,  when  he  was  accustomed  to  exercise 
his  natural  oratorical  gifts  in  preaching  to  his  brothers, 
sisters,  and  companions.  This  habit  of  giving  vent  to 
his  thoughts  and  feelings,  in  connection  with  his  read- 
ing of  religious  books,  must  have  stirred  the  homiletic 
impulse  within  him.  It  contributed  perhaps  to  that 
freedom  and  naturalness  which  subsequently  character- 
ized his  preaching,  and,  awakening  a  sense  of  the  minis- 
terial calling,  may  have  disclosed  itself  in  his  early 
assumption  of  the  right  to  rebuke  even  his  elders,  when 


BUILDING  OF  THE   EVANGELIST  387 

they  seemed  to  him  to  be  on  the  wrong  track.  His 
self-reliance  and  pluck,  his  hatred  of  all  shams  and  shows 
and  pretences  and  all  forms  of  tyranny,  and  his  intense 
love  of  freedom  were  an  early  disclosure.  This  inde- 
pendence, which  passed  into  an  amiable  opinionatedness 
and  self-will,  was  seen  when,  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  after 
much  pious  meditation  and,  according  to  his  measure, 
study,  he  became  convinced  that  his  inherited  views  of 
Christian  baptism  were  erroneous,  and  he  united  with 
the  Baptist  church. 

This  same  independence  he  disclosed  in  a  most  re- 
markable, and,  it  must  be  said,  irrational  manner,  in 
declining  his  father's  offer  of  aid  in  securing  for  him  a 
college  education.  Till  he  was  fifteen  years  old  he  at- 
tended school  and,  it  is  said,  did  his  school  tasks  well 
He  was  then  appointed  usher,  or  assistant  teacher,  in  a 
private  school  at  Newmarket,  near  Cambridge,  where  he 
continued  for  a  year.  The  appointment  to  such  a  posi- 
tion near  scholastic  Cambridge,  and  the  successful  doing 
of  his  work,  would  indicate  that  he  had  acquired  a  fair 
preparatory  education,  and  it  would  seem  that  he  might 
have  entered  the  College  of  the  Nonconformists  at  Step- 
ney, now  Regent  Park  College,  to  which,  during  this 
year,  his  father  for  several  hours  one  day  strenuously, 
but  in  vain,  urged  him.  There  was  a  touch  of  fanati- 
cism and  superstition  upon  him.  Like  many  men  of 
untrained  religious  genius,  he  was  subject  to  strong  in- 
ward impressions,  which  objectified  themselves,  and  he 
saw  visions  and  heard  voices.  One  day  he  had  an  ap- 
pointment, at  his  father's  instigation,  with  a  college 
teacher  to  talk  over  the  question  of  his  entering  college. 
By  some  miscarriage  they  failed  to  meet.     This  he  con- 


388   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

strued  as  clearly  providential,  and  then  he  seemed  to 
hear  a  voice  that  said  to  him,  of  course  in  Scripture  lan- 
guage that  was  familiar  to  him :  "  Seekest  thou  great 
things  for  thyself  ?  Seek  them  not "  (Jer.  xlv.  5).  And 
this  decided  the  question.  It  was  the  divine  will  that 
he  should  not  be  a  college  man.  This  illustrates  his 
susceptibility  to  impressions  from  Scripture.  He  gets 
from  it  what  the  impression  of  the  moment  suggests,  and 
this,  without  reference  to  the  original,  historic  meaning 
of  the  passage,  he  interprets  as  divine  guidance,  even  in 
regard  to  a  vital  question  involving  his  whole  future 
career.  Of  this  same  college  question  he  says  later  on, 
**  I  have  all  along  had  an  aversion  to  college."  And 
later  still,  "  I  am  more  and  more  glad  that  I  never  went 
to  college."  This  discloses  a  singular  narrowness  of 
vision.  It  is  not  sane.  But  in  the  light  of  his  career  it 
can  hardly  be  called  discreditable.  From  this  it  should 
not  be  inferred  that  he  undervalued  knowledge  and  in- 
tellectual training,  that  he  lacked  studious  habits,  that 
he  undertook  to  substitute  intuition  or  subjective  im- 
pulse for  knowledge  won  by  hard  work,  or  that  he  was 
an  advocate  of  an  unlearned  ministry,  which  is  indepen- 
dently endued  with  "  Holy  Ghost  power."  He  under- 
valued the  college  curriculum,  but  he  always  counselled 
his  students  to  study  hard,  to  win  all  the  knowledge  and 
to  get  all  the  training  possible,  and  what  he  advocated 
he  practised.  He  distrusted  the  college  as  too  closely 
affiliated  with  the  movements  of  modern  thought  and 
life  which  might  undermine  the  faith  once  delivered  to 
the  Puritan  saints.  His  early  reading,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  religious.  He  gave  himself  to  the  Puritan  writers, 
and  perhaps  no  man  of  his  day  had  a  better  knowledge 


BUILDING  OF   THE   EVANGELIST  389 

of  them.  His  "  Treasury  of  David  "  attests  his  labori- 
ous, conscientious,  loving  study  of  them.  Pointing  a 
visitor  one  day  to  the  works  of  Puritan  theologians  and 
preachers,  with  which  the  shelves  of  his  library  were 
loaded,  he  said,  "  I  have  preached  them  all."  They 
had  indeed  all  become  tributary  to  his  extraordinary  homi- 
letic  suggestiveness.  But  with  other  and  various  species 
of  literature  he  also  increasingly  familiarized  himself. 
He  was  an  intelligent  but  rapid  and  omnivorous  reader. 
With  works  on  geography,  history,  biography,  poetry, 
and  general  popular  literature  he  was  at  home.  With 
all  his  devoutness,  unworldliness,  and  single-hearted  re- 
ligious earnestness,  he  was  no  ascetic.  For  the  sake  of 
his  influence  he  preached  and  practised  "total  absti- 
nence," but  he  smoked  his  cigar  "to  the  glory  of  God." 
He  seems  to  have  inherited  the  gift  of  humor.  He  had 
the  fun  and  frolic  of  his  family  and  race,  as  well  as 
their  common  sense  and  business  thrift  and  enterprise. 
In  striking  contrast  with  the  austerities  of  his  Calvin- 
istic  theology  is  his  jolly  humor  and  his  racy  mother  wit. 
He  always  saw  the  humorous  side  of  things,  was  an 
admirable  story-teller,  a  great  punster,  was  loaded  with 
proverbs,  and  was  himself  a  maker  of  wise  sayings  that 
resembled  proverbs.  A  volume  of  pithy  sayings  might 
be  extracted  from  his  works,  that  would  be  as  notable 
in  their  way  as  Mr.  Beecher's.  His  jovial  disposition 
and  his  racy  humor  disclose  themselves  in  his  lectures 
to  the  students  of  his  "  Pastor's  College,"  and  they  are 
not  inharmonious  with  the  seriousness  of  the  subjects 
discussed.  These  lectures  have  not  infrequently  a  touch 
of  coarseness,  of  "  cock-sureness "  and  bumptiousness, 
that  is  unpleasant,  and  their  judgments  are  often  super- 


390       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

ficial ;  but  they  are  well  worth  reading,  not  only  for  their 
pungent,  striking,  illustrative  method  of  putting  things, 
but  for  their  sturdy  common  sense  and  their  reality. 

During  the  year  when  he  was  usher  at  Newmarket, 
after  having  united  with  the  Baptist  church  and  before 
he  was  sixteen  years  old,  he  began  to  preach.  Children 
and  adults  in  the  rural  districts  about  Cambridge,  gath- 
ered in  schoolhouses,  constituted  his  first  audiences.  His 
success  was  such  that,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  he  was 
chosen  pastor  of  a  small  Baptist  church  at  Waterbeach, 
not  far  from  Cambridge.  During  this  pastorate  of  al- 
most two  years  the  membership  of  his  church  doubled, 
every  monthly  communion  service  witnessing  accessions 
to  it.  At  that  time  the  New  Park  Street  Baptist  church 
of  London,  an  old  church  with  an  interesting  history 
and  a  succession  of  able  and  learned  men  as  pastors, 
was  in  search  of  a  minister.  His  general  reputation, 
rapidly  won,  for  success  in  pulpit  and  pastorate,  and 
particularly  a  Sunday-school  address  delivered  by  him 
at  Cambridge,  resulted  in  drawing  the  attention  of  the 
officers  of  this  church  to  him,  and  in  January  of  1854, 
before  he  was  yet  twenty  years  old,  he  became  its 
pastor.  It  was  in  a  depleted  condition  numerically  and 
financially,  and  seemed  a  forlorn  hope.  But  the  audi- 
torium was  soon  crowded,  and  hundreds  who  had  de- 
serted the  church  returned.  He  preached  almost  daily, 
and  he  was  in  demand  elsewhere  in  and  about  London, 
especially  in  connection  with  philanthropic  and  mission- 
ary movements.  His  sermons  were  always  Biblical,  but 
were  such  under  close  Calvinistic  limitations,  not  to  say 
fetters.  He  spoke  in  a  free,  simple,  pithy,  colloquial 
manner,  as  was  always  his  wont,  and  the  unconventional 


BUILDING   OF  THE   EVANGELIST  391 

straightforwardness  and  reality  of  his  speech  were  tell- 
ing. His  early  structural  method  he  subsequently  char- 
acterized as  one  of  "glorious  confusion."  It  is  not  clear 
that  the  old  Puritan  preachers  were  doing  much  for  him 
at  this  time,  else  he  would  have  known  the  inglorious- 
ness  of  such  homiletic  confusion.  But  he  had  the  good 
sense  to  correct  it,  although  his  method  always  suggests 
the  homiletic  knack.  "  Now,"  he  says,  "  I  have  a  shelf 
in  my  head  for  everything,  and  whatever  I  read  or  hear, 
I  know  where  to  stow  it  away  for  use  at  the  proper 
time."  This  idea  of  a  "  shelf  "  for  his  knowledge  is  not 
badly  descriptive.  It  is  perhaps  more  accurate  than  he 
realized.  It  suggests  a  storehouse,  a  well-arranged 
magazine  of  information.  It  was  an  orderly  but  some- 
what external  and  formal  method.  The  sermon  lacks 
organic  development.  Thoughts  are  taken  down  as 
from  a  shelf  and  placed  in  juxtaposition.  It  is  the 
work  of  a  fertile  but  untrained  mind.  His  sermons  in 
the  early  years  are  full  of  illustrations  wrought  up  from 
his  reading  in  a  somewhat  formal  and  pedantic  manner. 
But  he  constantly  developed  in  intellectual  sobriety. 
His  preaching  was  always  concrete  and  illustrative,  but 
increasingly  weighty  in  substance  and  fruitful  in  sug- 
gestion. He  observed  the  thought,  appropriated  the 
method,  as  he  caught  the  style,  of  the  old  Puritan 
preachers.  In  fact,  it  was  the  English  Bible  and  the 
old  Puritan  writers  and  preachers,  brought  into  contact 
with  a  fertile  and  ingeniously  suggestive  mind,  that 
shaped  his  preaching.  From  the  first  year  of  his  Lon- 
don ministry  his  sermons  were  pubHshed,  have  been 
gathered  into  nearly  forty  volumes,  have  gone  wherever 
the  English  language  is  spoken,  and  many  have  been 


392       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

translated  into  foreign  tongues.  Crude  in  thought  and 
rough  instruments  of  power  they  are,  and  will  not  live. 
But  in  their  earnestness,  their  reality,  their  pith  and 
pungency,  they  are  doing  well  their  short-lived  work. 
Accomplished  German  writers  on  homiletics  speak  in 
high  praise  of  them.  The  Christian  world  has  rarely 
witnessed  such  an  instance  of  homiletic  productiveness. 
During  the  first  enlargement  of  his  church  building  in 
1854,  when  he  was  only  twenty  years  old,  he  preached 
in  Exeter  Hall  and  was  the  sensation  of  the  hour.  This 
may  seem  to  illustrate  what  the  Netherlanders,  Spur- 
geon's  ancestors,  regarded  as  the  volatile  character  of 
the  English  people  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  age,  a  quality 
that  is  not  commonly  attributed  to  them.  But  it  more 
conclusively  illustrates  the  genuine  power  of  the  young 
preacher.  His  church  building  was  many  times  en- 
larged, till  the  Tabernacle  stood  as  the  monument  of  his 
genius  as  a  preacher,  and  the  church  that  had  grown  to 
large  proportions  was  in  all  ways  one  of  the  most  pros- 
perous in  England.  Here  for  a  long  succession  of  years, 
not  only  the  common  people,  but  people  of  education 
and  intelligence  and  culture,  were  among  his  interested 
and  profited  listeners.  Prominent  preachers  of  the 
Anglican  church  regarded  him  as  the  greatest  of  all 
the  preachers  of  nonconformity.  Mr.  Gladstone  knew 
good  preaching,  and  he  had  a  high  estimate  of  Mr. 
Spurgeon,  being  seen  not  infrequently  as  an  interested 
listener  at  the  Tabernacle.  John  Ruskin  knew  good 
English,  and  he  highly  estimated  him  as  a  master  of 
idiomatic  English  style,  and  for  several  years  he  held  a 
sitting  in  his  church.  American  preachers,  like  the  late 
Professor  Park,  himself  a  great  preacher,  but  of  a  very 


BUILDING  OF   THE  EVANGELIST  393 

different  school,  listened  to  him  with  great  admiration 
and  profound  emotion.  He  visited  Scotland  many  times 
and  the  enthusiasm  awakened  by  his  preaching  is  said 
to  have  more  than  matched  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
their  own  Chalmers  had  stirred  the  sober-minded  Scotch. 
Even  from  conservative  and  highly  respectable  Oxford 
came  the  testimony  that  there  were  "  few  of  the  immense 
audiences  that  were  privileged  to  listen  to  him  that  were 
not  astonished  and  delighted  at  the  wonderful  power 
and  ability  with  which  he  was  so  highly  gifted."  These 
campaigns  of  oratorical  conquest  inclined  him  at  one 
time  to  the  folly  of  abandoning  his  church  and  of  entering 
upon  the  career  of  a  professional  itinerant  evangelist, 
from  which  he  was  saved  by  the  great  wisdom  of  his 
people  in  securing  for  him  an  audience  room  commen- 
surate with  his  needs.  Everything  seemed  tributary  to 
his  success  as  a  preacher,  —  not  less  the  sneers,  in  his 
early  ministry,  of  the  so-called  cultivated  classes  and 
the  opposition  of  ecclesiastical  enemies,  than  the  favor 
of  the  common  people  and  the  laudation  of  friends,  —  till 
at  last  his  hold  upon  the  English  people  of  all  classes 
and  ecclesiastical  connections  became  thoroughly  fixed, 
so  that  he  was  taken  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  became 
a  recognized  moral  and  religious  force  to  be  reckoned 
with  by  all  intelligent  people. 

The  world  knows  the  story  of  his  career,  and  it  knows 
fairly  well  the  agencies,  processes,  and  personal  quali- 
ties by  which  he  won  the  confidence  even  of  those  who 
at  first  sneered  at  him,  and  by  which  his  influence  was 
constantly  enlarged.  His  success  was  not  an  accident, 
nor  a  mistake.  It  was  not  simply  the  sincerity  of  his 
faith  in  what  he  preached,  and  the  strength  of  his  con- 


394   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

viction,  not  his  religious  devotion,  his  genuine  good 
nature,  his  mother  wit,  his  tact  in  dealing  with  men,  his 
fertility  of  suggestion,  his  productive  imagination,  his 
great  power  of  acquisition  and  retention,  his  pathos  and 
humor.  We  must  also  consider  his  great  tenacity  of 
purpose  in  grappling  with  hard  work.  Few  men  have 
combined  his  genius  for  preaching  and  for  administra- 
tion. And  his  career  illustrates  significantly  the  value 
of  pulpit  power  in  the  administration  of  large  parochial 
and  philanthropic  enterprises.  Other  preachers  have 
had  the  full  measure  of  his  power  in  reaching  large 
masses  of  the  people  from  the  pulpit,  but  few  have  ever 
had  anything  like  his  early  success,  and  but  few  his 
measure  of  success  in  multiplying  the  sources  of  benefi- 
cent influence  in  the  work  of  philanthropy.  And  as  he 
multiplied  the  agencies  of  personal  power,  he  himself 
also  developed  in  weight  and  sobriety  of  thought,  meas- 
urably outgrew  the  defects  of  his  early  training,  and 
counter-worked  by  his  practical  common  sense  the  crude- 
ness  of  his  theology.  His  sympathies  also  constantly 
enlarged,  notwithstanding  his  limited  theological  horizon, 
and  his  style,  always  picturesquely  illustrative,  increased 
in  dignity  and  strength.  He  contributed  nothing  to  the 
thought  of  the  church.  But  as  the  watcher  and  winner 
of  souls  he  has  touched  powerfully  the  life  of  the  church. 
He  will  live,  not  in  the  theology  he  preached,  but  in  the 
lives  he  has  lifted  and  in  the  institutions  he  has  founded 
and  fostered. 


THE  PURITAN  PASTORAL  EVANGELIST        395 


II 


THE   PREACHING   OF  THE   PURITAN  PASTORAL 
EVANGELIST 

Mr.  Spurgeon  was  distinctively  an  evangelistic 
preacher.  And  it  is  as  the  representative  of  the  popular 
effectiveness  of  this  school  of  preachers  that  he  has 
been  selected  for  our  consideration.  His  pastoral 
preaching  indeed  aims  to  instruct  and  edify  in  Christian 
knowledge  and  virtue,  but,  on  the  whole,  it  is  better 
adapted  to  the  work  of  stirring  men  to  evangelistic  and 
philanthropic  effort.  He  speaks,  indeed,  in  a  way  to  the 
mind,  for  he  is  one  of  the  clearest  of  preachers.  But 
what  he  says  passes  straight  and  swift  through  the  mind 
into  feehng,  conviction,  and  action,  and  it  is  his  aim  so 
to  present  the  truth  as  to  win  faith  in  and  allegiance  to 
Christ.  He  was  somewhat  polemical  in  his  preaching, 
especially  in  the  early  period.  But  there  is  no  perma- 
nently valuable  apologetic  quality  about  it.  He  deals 
with  the  doctrines  of  grace  according  to  the  Calvinistic 
type,  but  they  are  adjusted  to  evangelistic  impression, 
and  he  is  in  no  adequate  sense  a  doctrinal  preacher. 
One  would  find  himself  misled  if  he  were  to  rely  upon 
him  for  a  reasonable  and  discriminating  statement  of  the 
most  important  Christian  doctrines,  and  if  he  were  of  an 
independent,  critical  mind,  he  would  be  seriously  disap- 
pointed. His  statements  of  doctrine  make  more  im- 
pression upon  the  imagination  than  upon  the  critical 
judgment.  He  handles  a  great  amount  of  Biblical  truth 
and  in  a  very  effective  way.  But  in  the  largest  and  best 
sense  he  is  not  an  expository  preacher  as  Robertson  is. 


396       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

He  deals  with  Scripture  in  such  way  that  it  catches  the 
fancy,  stirs  an  emotional  interest,  and  doubtless  secures 
practical  results,  but  he  conveys  to  the  mind  no  clear  and 
connected  knowledge  of  Biblical  truth.  He  deals  with 
the  ethical  aspects  of  truth,  and  lays  its  moral  demands 
forcefully  upon  the  conscience,  but  he  gives  the  critical 
hearer  no  adequate  conception  of  the  basis  of  moral 
obligation,  no  adequate  Christian  conception  of  the 
nature  of  moral  law,  no  adequate  vision  of  the  highest 
good,  no  adequately  discriminated  statement  as  to 
what  is  distinctive  in  Christian  duty,  nor  does  he  deal 
very  largely  with  the  different  forms  or  spheres  of 
Christian  virtue.  Like  all  evangelistic  preachers,  he 
deals  mostly  with  the  cardinal  doctrines  of  grace  and 
with  the  cardinal  Christian  virtues  of  faith  and  love ;  but 
those  virtues  that  grow  out  of  this  soil  in  multitudinous 
Christian  forms,  as  conditioned  by  the  various  relations 
of  life,  and  are  realized  in  the  development  of  Christian 
character,  he  rarely  touches.  He  cannot  be  called, 
therefore,  in  any  adequate  sense,  an  ethical  preacher. 
He  deals  abundantly  with  Biblical  bio*graphy  and  history, 
but  it  is  all  in  the  evangelistic  interest  and  according  to 
the  evangelistic  method.  But  his  power  as  an  evange- 
listic preacher  cannot  be  doubted. 

Premising,  then,  that  Spurgeon  must  be  estimated  as 
such,  and  will  stand  the  test  of  no  other  estimate,  let  us 
look  at  a  few  of  the  more  prominent  elements  of  his 
power,  which  may  be  helpful,  noting  incidentally  such 
defects  as  may  prove  admonitory. 

I.  Beginning  with  what  is  most  exterior,  but  with  what 
has  also  a  vital  root,  Mr.  Spurgeon  demonstrates  the 
power  of  naturalness  in  the  work  of  the  preacher.     It  is 


THE   PURITAN   PASTORAL   EVANGELIST        397 

the  prevailing  opinion  among  Englishmen  that  his  suc- 
cess was  in  no  small  measure  due  to  the  perfect  simplicity, 
reality,  straightforward  directness,  and  unconventionality 
of  his  pulpit  method.  All  this  is  contrasted  with  the 
conventional  type  of  preaching  that  prevails  in  the  Es- 
tablished church.  This,  of  course,  is  only  one  phase  of 
the  question,  and  there  is  much  that  lies  behind  it  and 
gives  accent  to  it,  but  it  is  an  important  consideration. 
Preaching  tends  to  become  conventional,  and  the  new 
man  with  a  genius  for  preaching  is  needed  to  lead  the 
way  in  a  more  spontaneous  and  natural  method.  Spur- 
geon  is  just  such  a  man.  But,  although  distinctly  a  man 
of  homiletic  genius,  he  is  also  a  product  of  methods  that 
prevail  in  the  Free  churches  of  England,  and  which  are 
in  strong  contrast  with  those  that  prevail  in  the  Estab- 
lished church.  Anglican  preaching,  especially  at  the  time 
when  Mr.  Spurgeon  appeared,  was  of  such  sort  as  to 
render  the  success  of  such  a  man  easily  possible.  There 
is  not  much  evangelistic  preaching  in  the  proper  sense 
in  the  Anglican  church,  which  in  influence  overshadows 
all  other  churches.  Its  preaching  is  ecclesiastical  and 
lacks  freshness  and  vitality.  In  Spurgeon's  early 
days  it  lacked  in  rhetorical  and  oratorical  power  of  a 
genuine  sort,  and  was  dull,  monotonous,  and  conven- 
tional. If  in  the  evangelical  branch  the  preacher  han- 
dled the  truth  with  more  power  of  emotion  and  senti- 
ment, this  seemingly  had  degenerated  largely  into  feeble 
sentimentality. 

In  the  Free  churches  men  have  learned  their  art  by 
practising  it  in  a  simple,  straightforward  manner.  In 
this  way  the  talent  for  evangelistic  preaching  is  culti- 
vated in  a  most  notable  manner.      The  Establishment 


398   REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN  PREACHERS 

does  not  produce  this  type  of  preachers  to  any  consid- 
erable extent.  Men  cannot  preach  before  they  take 
orders,  and  Spurgeon  had  been  preaching  for  several 
years  before  the  age  at  which  the  Anglican  churchman 
is  permitted  to  take  orders.  Robertson  belonged  to  the 
Establishment,  but  he  was  more  than  an  Anglican  prod- 
uct, and  his  power  was  not  that  of  the  evangelistic 
preacher.  But  for  the  Anglican  church,  such  a  man  as 
Spurgeon  would  be  an  impossibility.  Prophetic  gifts, 
even  when  developed  within  the  Umits  of  its  own  ecclesi- 
asticism,  as  in  revolutionary  periods  has  been  the  case, 
have  been  discredited.  The  career  of  the  Wesleys  and 
of  Whitefield  are  proof.  Doubtless  there  is  better  soil 
and  atmosphere  for  these  gifts  than  formerly.  But  in 
Spurgeon's  early  days  they  were  unproductive.  It  is 
the  freedom  of  the  dissenting  churches  that  makes  Mr. 
Spurgeon  possible.  Here  men  begin  early  and  find 
themselves  by  grappling  vigorously  with  the  obstacles 
of  their  calling.  In  the  case  of  the  commonplace  man, 
the  result  is,  doubtless,  often  bad  enough.  Mediocrity 
and  cant  have  free  range.  But  in  the  case  of  a  man  of 
great  native  homiletic  gifts,  the  result  could  not  fail  to 
be  the  development  of  great  preaching  power.  With 
better  training  Mr.  Spurgeon  might  have  been  bettered 
as  a  preacher.  But  the  training  independently  of  the 
actual  work  of  preaching  never  could  have  accomplished 
the  desired  result.  At  the  time  Mr.  Spurgeon  appeared, 
there  were  a  few  conspicuous  preachers  in  the  Free 
churches,  but  the  average  of  excellence  was  not  high. 
It  was,  on  the  whole,  easier  for  a  man  of  mark  to  secure 
a  place  of  eminence  in  these  churches  than  it  would  have 
been  later  on,  or  than  it  would  have  been  in  this  coun- 


THE  PURITAN   PASTORAL  EVANGELIST        399 

try.  Accordingly  the  success  of  Mr.  Spurgeon,  with  his 
supremely  evangelistic  spirit,  especially  with  his  fresh 
gifts  of  speech,  is  the  more  easily  explained.  Possibly 
he  might  not  have  secured  in  this  country,  that  has  pro- 
duced such  a  preacher  as  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  so  emi- 
nent a  position.  But  be  that  as  it  may,  he  had  the  right 
environment,  he  had  an  easy  field,  and  the  requisite  en- 
dowments, and  the  gifts  of  grace  that  are  essential  to 
the  great  evangelistic  preacher.  Such  a  man  was  needed, 
and  he  was  sent  as  a  leader  in  this  type  of  preaching  in 
which  his  influence  has  been  great  and  wide-reaching. 

As  already  intimated,  unlike  some  great  preachers 
of  this  school,  he  was  not  much  indebted  to  his  physi- 
cal equipment.  It  was  not,  like  that  of  Guthrie,  a  com- 
manding presence.  He  was  neither  tall,  nor  comely, 
nor  particularly  graceful.  In  facial  expression  he  was 
somewhat  dull  and  unattractive.  He  was  thick  set,  and 
there  was  about  him  a  suggestion  of  physical  grossness. 
He  bore  an  expression  of  unfailing  good  nature,  but  the 
countenance  was  not  suggestive  of  eminent  intellectual 
or  spiritual  qualities.  His  dress  was  unprofessional,  ap- 
propriate to  the  character,  the  tastes,  and  environment 
of  the  man.  He  had  a  hearty  and  wholesome  con- 
tempt of  ministerial  pomposity  and  of  ecclesiastical 
millinery.  His  movements  were  not  wholly  graceful, 
like  those  of  Guthrie.  His  voice,  however,  was  exceed- 
ingly clear  and  distinct,  had  great  compass,  and  was 
capable  of  expressing  great  varieties  of  feeling.  It 
expressed  the  qualities  of  tenderness,  severity,  stateli- 
ness,  and  strength  with  great  effectiveness.  It  had 
hardly  the  richness  of  Beecher's  voice,  or  the  clarion 
quality  of  Whitefield's,  as  it  is  reported  to  us.     With 


400      REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

the  exception  of  the  voice,  there  was  in  Spurgeon  very 
little  that  was  impressive.  Naturalness,  however,  spon- 
taneous freedom,  and  simple  straightforwardness  were 
very  marked.  He  was  easy  and  self-possessed,  and  there 
was  about  him  an  air  of  moral  sobriety  and  seriousness. 
He  had  no  pulpit  mannerisms.  He  stood  erect,  or, 
when  reaching  after  his  audience,  bent  over  the  desk 
in  a  wholly  natural  and  not  altogether  ungraceful  man- 
ner, and  there  was  no  appearance  of  conscious  effort. 
He  stood  there  in  perfect  simplicity  and  talked  in  a 
free,  familiar,  conversational  manner,  as  if  he  were  in- 
tent upon  taking  his  audience  into  his  confidence.  It 
has  been  suggested  that  his  preaching  in  this  regard 
must  have  resembled  that  of  our  Lord.  And  there  is 
ground  for  the  suggestion,  for  the  one  word  used  by 
the  evangelists  in  characterization  of  the  preaching  of 
Christ  is  the  word  "  talk."  He  spoke  to  the  people  as 
one  talking  in  a  simple,  colloquial  manner,  without  ora- 
torical effort.  Even  in  his  oratorical  flights,  Spurgeon 
never  lost  his  naturalness.  There  was  nothing  of  the 
intensity  and  businesslike  aggressiveness  of  Mr.  Moody. 
One  questions  for  the  moment  whether  the  very  limita- 
tions of  his  learning  and  the  meagreness  of  his  intel- 
lectual training  may  not  have  been  tributary  to  this 
quality  of  naturalness.  One  is  even  puzzled  transiently 
with  the  question  whether  in  such  bliss  of  ignorance, 
in  which  simplicity  and  spontaneity  and  freedom  reign 
supreme,  it  were  not  "folly  to  be  wise."  Did  not  Mr. 
Spurgeon  know  himself  better  than  any  of  his  friends 
knew  him,  when  he  resolved  not  to  go  to  college  and 
chose  to  learn  what  he  might  only  in  his  own  con- 
scious  calling   as   a    preacher.?      But    after    all   such 


THE   PURITAN   PASTORAL  EVANGELIST        401 

doubts  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  Mr.  Spurgeon  was  a 
man  of  extraordinary  native  preaching  gifts,  and  that 
these  gifts  simply  triumphed  measurably  over  his  de- 
fects of  education  and  culture.  If  genius  can  thus 
triumph  over  defects,  it  certainly  can  triumph  over  the 
supposed  tendency  of  a  larger  Jcnowledge  and  closer 
training  to  repress  the  native  forces,  or  to  "freeze  the 
genial  currents  of  the  soul."  If  he  was  powerful  in 
what  we  may  regard  as  his  relative  ignorance  and  un- 
discipline,  he  would  have  been  far  more  powerful  in  the 
right  sort  with  better  instruments  at  his  command,  and 
his  influence  might  have  been  much  more  permanent. 
Education  of  the  right  sort  can  never  hamper  genius. 
Its  natural  and  legitimate  result  should  be  to  emanci- 
pate it  from  its  limitations  and  deterrents.  But  one  of 
the  great  lessons  which  Spurgeon's  success  as  a  preacher 
teaches  is  that  nothing  should  be  permitted  to  repress  the 
freedom  of  the  preacher.  A  literary  or  theological  or 
homiletical  training  that  should  hamper  a  man,  or  in  any 
sort  or  measure  check  the  free  expression  of  his  ener- 
gies, would  be  a  curse.  The  problem  for  every  preacher 
is  how  to  train  himself  effectively  in  lines  in  which  he 
can  work  most  freely.  Spurgeon  thoroughly  solved 
that  problem  in  his  early  life.  It  does  not  take  a  man 
of  homiletic  genius  like  him  very  long  to  find  out  what 
he  can  do  best  and  how  best  he  can  do  it.  Spurgeon 
attempted  to  do  only  what  he  could  do  naturally  and 
with  freedom.  A  man  without  his  gifts  may  be  longer 
in  getting  at  the  secret  of  his  strength.  But  it  will  at 
last  be  discovered  or  the  man  will  work  as  a  slave. 

2.    Spurgeon's  consciousness  of  vocation  is  an  element 
of  power  in  his  evangelistic  preaching  that  may  well  be 

2D 


402       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN  PREACHERS 

noted.  He  always  disclosed  and  frequently  asserted, 
especially  in  his  early  ministry,  the  consciousness  of  a 
divine  call  to  do  just  the  work  he  was  doing.  The 
failure  of  his  ministry,  in  so  far  as  he  found  failure  in  it, 
and  in  that  of  other  men,  he  attributed  to  a  lack  or  loss 
of  assurance  that  God  was  behind  them  and  was  work- 
ing through  them.  "  I  am  as  much  called,"  he  says, 
"  to  preach  the  gospel  as  Paul  was,"  and  who  can 
doubt  it  ?  In  presenting  the  claims  of  the  gospel,  in 
appealing 'to  men  to  accept  the  service  of  Christ,  it 
surely  is  of  unspeakable  value  to  the  preacher  to  feel 
that  he  has  been  called  and  sent  to  do  that  work,  to  feel 
that  a  message  has  been  committed  to  him,  and  that 
in  proclaiming  it  he  is  indeed  an  ambassador  of  God. 
It  must  increase  a  man's  power  tenfold.  All  great 
evangelists  have  felt  this.  Mr.  Spurgeon's  approach  to 
his  fellow-men  was  that  of  a  man  who  was  conscious  of 
moral  authority  and  power,  and  for  this  reason  his 
speech  was  masterful.  Note  his  lofty  treatment  of  men 
whom  he  regards  as  in  rebellion  against  God.  In  one 
of  his  early  sermons  ^  he  speaks  of  the  invitation  to  the 
tomb  of  the  risen  Lord  as  being  given  to  Christian 
disciples  only.  Then  he  utters  a  word  of  admonition  in 
most  confident  and  authoritative  fashion  to  all  profane 
souls,  to  the  sordid,  the  carnal,  and  the  frivolous,  and 
bids  them  away  from  the  tomb.  It  is  all  done  in  such 
rhetorical  fashion  as  not  to  offend  seriously,  but  in  the 
very  venture  there  is  clear  trace  of  the  consciousness 
of  authority  to  deal  with  sinners  as  an  ambassador  of 
God.  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  it  is  done  in  a  very 
impressive  manner.     In  speaking  to  this  class  he  always 

i«The  Tomb  of  Jesus,"  "  Spurgeon  the  Modern  Whitefield,"  No.  XI. 


THE   PURITAN    PASTORAL   EVANGELIST        403 

manifests  the  same  boldness  and  faithfulness.  He 
talks  straight  at  men  and  is  not  afraid  to  probe  their 
consciences.  To  those  who  leave  their  own  congrega- 
tions to  hear  him  as  the  latest  sensation,  he  utters  the 
boldest  and  severest  rebuke.  There  was  great  power 
in  this  clear,  direct,  bold  appeal.  Of  course  the  man 
who  does  this  successfully  must  have  the  ear  of  the 
people,  and  must  understand  his  ground.  But  surely 
there  will  be  no  very  successful  evangelistic  preaching 
which  is  not  in  the  right  way  and  at  the  right  time 
direct,  searching,  bold,  and  uncompromising,  striking  at 
the  centre  and  dealing  with  sin  as  it  should  be  dealt 
with. 

3.  As  involved  in  the  consciousness  of  vocation,  the 
positiveness  of  Spurgeon's  preaching  is  another  element 
of  power  in  his  evangelism.  Needed  everywhere  in 
our  day  in  active  Christian  life,  a  positive  faith  is 
supremely  necessary  in  the  pulpit,  and  above  all  in  suc- 
cessful evangelistic  preaching.  Spurgeon's  positiveness 
disclosed  itself  in  various  ways,  but  preeminently  in  his 
apparent  absolute  freedom  from  theological  doubt. 
To  doubt  the  truth  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,  New- 
man regarded  as  a  sin.  Not  the  less  sinful  would  Spur- 
geon  regard  any  doubt  of  the  truth  of  Calvinism.  Is  it 
not  found  in  God's  Book  ?  And  who  shall  doubt  what 
God  has  said  without  sinning  ?  He  apparently  had  not 
the  slightest  doubt  that  Calvinism  was  identical  with 
Christianity.  He  had  not  thoroughly  mastered  the  Cal- 
vinistic  system,  and  never  apprehended  its  difficulties. 
But  he  knew  its  prominent  features.  He  took  hold  of 
individual  truths  that  appear  in  Calvinistic  dress,  and  he 
made  practical  use  of  them,  in  doing  which  he  was  con- 


404       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

fessedly  skilful  and  forceful.  He  believed  with  all  his 
might.  Sometimes,  indeed,  his  positiveness  lapses  into 
discourtesy  and  even  into  a  species  of  amiable  impudence. 
He  undertook  sometimes  to  demolish  unbelief  in  sledge- 
hammer fashion,  as  if  it  might  be  put  down  by  the  force 
of  his  personal  will.  He  criticised  his  ministerial  breth- 
ren who  were  many  of  them  his  peers  in  piety,  and  his 
superiors  in  learning  and  in  intellectual  discrimination. 
He  wasted  a  good  deal  of  energy  in  his  early  days  in 
undertaking  to  set  the  ministerial  world  right. 

In  later  years,  however,  he  saw  his  error,  and  became 
more  courteous  and  more  catholic  in  his  spirit.  He 
thoroughly  disliked  Arminianism  and  pitied  Arminians. 
He  was  perfectly  sure,  and  he  was  perfectly  honest  in 
his  conviction,  that  what  he  called  the  "  Down  Grade 
Movement"  was  due  to  the  abandonment  by  the  churches 
of  the  Calvinistic  doctrines  of  grace.  Scepticism  with 
respect  to  the  old  doctrine  of  a  substitutionary  atone- 
ment, the  inerrancy  of  the  Scriptures,  future  eternal 
punishment,  and  other  doctrines,  was  surely  the  result 
of  abandoning  the  positive  teachings  of  the  church 
creeds,  even  with  respect  to  less  important  matters.  All 
this  had  resulted,  he  was  convinced,  in  a  great  decline 
in  the  spiritual  life  of  the  church.  He  accordingly  with- 
drew from  the  Baptist  Union  and  organized  a  new  con- 
ference, whose  basis  was  to  be  allegiance  to  the  doctrines 
of  grace  as  interpreted  by  Calvinism,  the  doctrine  of 
immersion,  and  the  mission  of  the  ministry  to  win  souls. 
He  was  extreme  in  his  theological  positions.  He  denied 
that  there  was  any  adequate  power  in  Christian  experi- 
ence to  test  the  truth,  and  adhered  to  the  doctrine  of 
an  infallible  Bible.    Man  once  had  the  power  to  discover 


THE  PURITAN   PASTORAL  EVANGELIST       405 

the  truth ;  but  he  believed,  as  Newman  did,  that  it  had 
been  lost,  and  now  we  must  all  rest  upon  the  external 
Word  of  God.  The  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  must 
be  accepted,  despite  its  difficulties,  because  it  is  found 
in  the  Bible.  His  conception  of  prayer  was  substan- 
tially that  in  it  we  go  to  God  for  what  we  need  and 
want,  expecting  that  we  shall  always  get  it.  It  is  go- 
ing to  the  bank  with  a  check,  which  God  will  honor 
promptly.  There  is,  therefore,  no  need  of  loafing  about 
the  bank.  Present  your  check,  get  what  it  calls  for, 
and  leave.  He  held  extreme  and  unreasonable  views 
of  divine  intervention  in  the  support  of  the  philanthropic 
institutions  which  he  had  established.  There  are  two 
ways  and  only  two  —  there  can  be  no  third  that  is  suc- 
cessful. One  is  the  method  of  implicit  rehance  upon 
God  ;  the  other  is  reliance  upon  men.  There  is  no  mid- 
dle course.  To  rely  partly  upon  God  and  partly  upon 
men  is  always  unsuccessful.  He  sometimes  attacked 
errors  of  which  he  knew  but  little,  but  with  all  the  assur- 
ance of  infallibility.  All  this  was  a  weakness  which  he 
partially  recognized  in  later  years.  But,  after  all,  it  was 
the  defect  of  a  strong  quality.  The  positiveness  and  the 
strength  of  the  faith  behind  was  a  condition  of  power. 
It  is  better  to  be  intelligently  positive,  positive  in  knowl- 
edge and  yet  in  charity,  positive  in  a  few  things  and  not 
cherish  the  foible  of  omniscience.  But  infinitely  better 
be  positive  even  in  ignorance  and  mistake  than  double- 
minded  and  vacillating.  No  pulpit  can  be  a  place  of 
power  unless  there  be  strong  positive  faith  and  convic- 
tion there.  If  Spurgeon's  positiveness  leads  him  some- 
times to  magnify  himself,  if  there  is  a  certain  naivete  in 
his  occasional  references  to  himself  in  the  pulpit,  it  is 


406       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN  PREACHERS 

only  a  part  of  the  strength  of  his  individuality,  and  he 
made  this  innocent  self-consciousness  tributary  to  his 
power  as  a  preacher.  For  people  are  interested  in  what 
centres  in  so  notable  a  personality.  His  positiveness 
and  force  of  individuaUty,  which  was  somewhat  rude  by 
reason  of  his  defective  training  and  culture,  led  him 
sometimes  almost  into  irreverence.  Some  of  his  prayers 
in  the  early  part  of  his  ministry  were  well-nigh  shock- 
ing. He  doubtless  intended  to  shock  the  commonplace 
respectability  of  the  formal  religionists  about  him.  His 
familiarity  with  the  quaint  old  Puritan  divines  encour- 
aged him  in  this,  for  he  at  first  followed  what  is  bad  as 
well  as  what  is  good  in  them.  He  was  sometimes  as 
rude  and  sensational  as  Rowland  Hill,  with  the  difference 
that  he  lived  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  rather 
than  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  was  an  inveterate 
punster  and  carried  the  punning  habit  into  the  pulpit, 
which  may  have  been  tolerable,  if  at  all,  only  in  view  of 
his  manifestly  sincere  desire  to  reach  and  benefit  his 
fellow-men,  and  in  view  of  his  youth  and  immaturity 
and  consequent  failure  to  take  fully  into  account  the  dig- 
nity that  is  demanded  of  the  Christian  preacher. 

It  may  seem  unfair  to  dwell  upon  these  early  defects. 
But  the  sole  object  in  so  doing  is  to  indicate  that  they 
are  a  manifestation  in  rude  form  of  the  positiveness,  the 
individuality,  and  the  force  of  his  character,  to  accen- 
tuate the  fact  that  the  success  of  his  career  was  despite 
rather  than  because  of  these  defects,  and  that  the  mani- 
fest earnestness  and  sincerity  of  the  man  carried  them. 
These  faults  he  measurably  overcame  in  his  later  min- 
istry. And  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  courage, 
the  directness,  the  plainness,  with  which  he  sought  to 


THE   PURITAN  PASTORAL   EVANGELIST        407 

impress  the  claims  of  the  gospel  upon  men,  his  power- 
ful denunciations  of  sin,  his  faithful  warnings  against  its 
ruin,  his  complete  emancipation  from  the  fear  of  man, 
his  refusal  to  be  brought  into  bondage  to  any  man  or 
class  of  men,  the  prophetic  freedom  with  which  he  pro- 
claimed all  that  his  convictions  cherished  as  true  —  it 
must  be  acknowledged  that  all  this  is  most  admirable, 
and  that  it  is  in  large  measure  the  secret  of  his  influence 
over  men. 

4.  The  value  for  effective  evangelistic  preaching  of 
a  working  knowledge  of  the  Bible  is  copiously  illustrated 
by  Mr.  Spurgeon.  It  cannot  be  said  that  he  had  any- 
thing more  than  a  superficial  knowledge  of  it  as  a  liter- 
ary product.  Of  Biblical  criticism  he  knew  nothing 
adequately,  and  he  was  an  unreliable  expositor.  In 
fact,  he  was  not  in  any  proper  sense  an  expository 
preacher.  He  never  dealt  with  the  Bible  in  such  way 
as  to  convey  to  the  mind,  as  Robertson  did,  a  clear  and 
connected  knowledge  of  Biblical  truth.  He  uses  the 
Bible  in  such  way  as  will  catch  the  fancy,  stir  the  emo- 
tions, and  secure  practical  results.  Incentive  and  edifi- 
cation, as  he  would  understand  it,  was  his  aim.  He  had 
much  skill  in  getting  Biblical  truth  into  working  use. 
His  exegesis  is  often  grotesque.  But  he  is  ingenious  in 
his  use  of  Biblical  material.  He  illustrates  the  value 
of  a  generous  use  of  the  imagination  in  deducing  fruit- 
ful thought  from  the  Scriptures.  He  was  master  of  the 
old  Puritan  method  of  Biblical  suggestion.  It  is  a  relic 
of,  but  an  improvement*  upon,  the  old  allegorical  method. 
He  develops  his  subject  textually  for  the  most  part, 
and  the  evangelistic  aim  is  apparent  throughout.  As  an 
illustration,  take  his  treatment  of  John  iii.  16.     It  is  the 


408       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

Biblical  and  evangelistic  method  of  getting  his  thought 
before  his  hearers.  "  I  want  to  make  you  see  how  great 
that  love  is  by  five  different  particulars."  And  this  is 
the  textual  outline  of  the  sermon  whose  title  and  theme 
are  "The  Immeasurable  Love":  i.  By  observing  first 
the  gift  ("  He  gave ") ;  a.  what,  b.  how,  c.  when.  2. 
The  plan  of  salvation (" whosoever  believeth,  etc.");  a, 
mental  assent  to  the  doctrine  of  substitution,  b.  personal 
acceptance  of  it,  c.  personal  trust  in  a  personal  Saviour 
as  such  substitute.  3.  Those  for  whom  this  salvation  is 
provided  (**  whosoever  believeth ").  4.  Deliverance, 
the  negative  result  ("  shall  not  perish  ").  5.  The  posi- 
tive result  (''shall  have  eternal  life"). 

One  will  hardly  fail  to  see  what  a  great  variety  of 
truths  are  embraced  within  the  limits  of  the  one  com- 
plex truth  of  the  text,  and  one  must  also  be  impressed 
with  the  possibilities  of  the  textual  method  of  preaching. 
But  the  critical  hearer  or  reader  will  note  the  difference 
between  the  Biblical  suggestiveness  of  practical  use  and 
the  theology  that  is  imported  from  without  into  it,  as 
illustrated  by  his  attempt  to  expound  the  doctrine  of 
faith  and  of  the  atonement.  *'  Faith  is  a  firm  and  cor- 
dial assent  to  the  truth  that  God  did  send  his  Son  .  .  . 
to  stand  in  the  room  and  stead  of  guilty  men  ...  so 
that  he  bore  the  punishment  due  to  our  transgressions." 
It  is  not  only  a  mental  assent  to  the  truth  of  substitu- 
tion, but  a  "  personal  acceptance  "  of  it.  It  is  primarily 
mental  acceptance  of  a  certain  truth.  Elsewhere,  how- 
ever, he  seems  to  have  in  mind  the  fact  rather  than  the 
truth  of  the  atonement.  Still,  as  he  conceives  it,  the 
atonement  is  the  fact  of  substitution.  By  personal 
transgression  one  appropriates  Adam's  sin  and  makes 


THE  PURITAN   PASTORAL  EVANGELIST        409 

it  his  own.  By  faith,  as  above  conceived,  one  appro- 
priates Christ's  righteousness  and  his  atonement  and 
makes  them  his  own.  Punished  for  appropriating  the 
sin  of  another,  saved  by  appropriating  the  righteousness 
and  the  satisfaction  of  another.  All  this  is  an  importa- 
tion of  technical  theology  into  a  simple  textual  develop- 
ment, and  the  success  of  the  sermon  is  not  at  all 
dependent  upon  the  conceptions  involved.  The  confu- 
sion of  thought,  too,  is  not  the  result  of  simple  Biblical 
exposition,  but  of  a  theological  importation.  The  appro- 
priation of  a  truth  is  confounded  with  personal  accept- 
ance of  a  fact.  And  the  appropriation  of  Christ's 
righteousness  is  confounded  with  the  appropriation  of 
his  atonement.  Stress  is  laid  upon  mental  assent, 
which  is  not  a  Biblical  conception.  This,  also,  is  a 
theological  importation. 

Now,  all  this  for  purposes  of  correct  theological  think- 
ing is  not  valuable.  For  discriminating  and  sceptical 
minds  it  might  be  positively  mischievous.  But  to  the 
undiscriminating  mind  he  succeeds  in  conveying,  even 
by  his  confused  and  contradictory  imported  theological 
form,  an  important  working  truth,  and  the  critical  but 
friendly  mind  will  read  behind  his  form  of  statement  an 
inner  truth  of  salvation.  And  so  it  is  in  general  with 
his  preaching.  The  success  of  the  sermon  does  not 
depend  on  the  hearer's  acceptance  of  the  preacher's 
theological  statements,  which  are  imported  from  his 
Calvinistic  creed.  There  is  always  a  residuum  of 
practical  working  truth,  —  truth  that  enters  through  the 
lower  doorways  of  the  soul  and  touches  the  heart  with- 
out informing  the  mind.  His  felicitous  use  of  the  text 
is  an  interesting  feature  of  his  Biblical  preaching.     The 


410       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

text  is  kept  constantly  before  the  mind.  He  has  the 
skill  of  the  old  Puritan  preachers  in  repeating  his  text, 
or  parts  of  it,  in  a  great  variety  of  connections  throughout 
the  sermon,  so  as  to  keep  it  constantly  before  the  mind, 
bringing  it  into  relation  with  a  great  variety  of  thoughts, 
thus  throwiiig  new  light  upon  it,  or  securing  new  sig- 
nificance for  it,  and  making  it  the  more  impressive.  It 
thus  speaks  for  itself  in  many  relations  and  becomes  the 
more  cogent  rhetorically.  One  notes  readily,  also,  that 
his  mind  is  completely  saturated  with  Biblical  diction. 
And  this  gives  a  certain  elevation  to  his  style,  with  all 
its  rugged  homeliness.  Biblical  expressions  are  found 
on  almost  every  page,  and  it  is  hardly  worth  while  to 
Hnger  with  citations  from  them.  But  they  impart,  not 
only  an  element  of  dignity  to  his  style,  as  well  as  clear- 
ness and  simplicity,  but  of  beauty  as  well,  and  often 
the  touch  of  pathos.  The  choicest  elements  of  beauty  in 
his  style,  and  for  so  plain  a  preacher  they  are  not  in- 
frequent, are  the  product  of  his  familiarity  with  Biblical 
diction.  His  rhetoric  has  been  nurtured  from  these 
sources,  and  by  Christian  hymns,  and  especially  by  the 
old  Puritan  writers.  They  impart  a  graceful,  rhythmic 
movement  to  his  sentences.  They  will  be  found  in 
abundance  in  the  sermon  above  referred  to.  Thus 
Biblical  diction  contributes  not  only  to  the  plain  and 
homely  qualities  of  his  style,  especially  to  the  Saxon 
element  in  his  vocabulary,  but  to  its  rhythmic  grace. 
And  one  fancies  that  his  use  of  figurative  language,  in 
which  the  metaphor,  apostrophe,  and  interrogation 
abound  and  which  contribute  to  the  qualities  of  style 
above  mentioned,  was  the  result,  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent, of  his  familiarity  with  the  language  of  the  Bible. 


THE  PURITAN   PASTORAL  EVANGELIST        411 

5.  Mr.  Spurgeon  illustrates  the  effectiveness  of  a 
skilful  use  of  the  ad  hominem  method  in  the  handling 
of  evangelistic  truth.  He  appeals  with  a  good  deal 
of  tact  to  men's  common  observations  and  experiences, 
to  their  feelings,  prepossessions,  and  interests,  and  to  that 
quick  perception  of  analogies  which  seems  to  be  the 
gift  of  the  popular  mind.  The  use  of  striking  contrast 
is  one  of  the  features  of  this  ad  hominem  method  of 
appeal.  To  endeavor  to  greaten  the  truth  to  the  ap- 
prehension and  in  the  estimate  of  the  hearer  by  contrast 
is  one  of  the  favorite  methods  of  evangelistic,  as  it  is  of 
apologetic,  preachers.  Mr.  Moody  was  facile  in  his  use 
of  it,  and  in  it  we  seem  to  see  Spurgeon's  influence. 
It  was  a  favorite  method  of  the  Puritan  preachers,  from 
whom  it  was  caught  and  domesticated,  but  modified,  by  Mr. 
Spurgeon.  It  is  a  characteristic  method  of  many  popular 
textual  preachers  like  the  late  Dr.  Joseph  Parker.  It 
was  a  familiar  device  of  the  Rev.  William  Jay,  and  in 
him  it  is  an  echo  of  the  old  Puritan  voice.  The  Welsh 
preachers  have  a  knack  at  it.  It  is  easily  overdone,  and 
demands  judicious  handling.  In  fact,  it  is  easily  brought 
into  contempt.  Its  suggestions  may  easily  be  specious 
and  even  false,  for  it  is  not  an  appeal  to  the  higher 
intelligence  or  to  the  critical  judgments,  but  to  the  faulty 
experiences,  to  the  hasty  imaginings,  even  to  the  preju- 
dices and  emotional,  and  perhaps  selfish,  interests  of 
men.  Christian  apologetics  has  often  used  this  principle 
of  contrast  in  a  speciously  ad  hominem  manner.  It  may 
be  used,  indeed,  in  a  perfectly  legitimate  and  very  effec- 
tive manner;  but  if  based  on  false  assumptions,  it  be- 
comes shallow  and  irrational  and  inconclusive.  The 
contrast,  for   example,  between  the  assumed  ignorance 


412       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

and  weakness  of  the  apostles  and  disciples  of  Christ  and 
the  greatness  of  their  achievements  has  often  been  used 
for  the  purpose  of  heightening  our  impression  of  the 
supernatural  power  of  Christianity,  and  often  very 
inconclusively. 

Robert  Hall  finds  an  argument  for  the  supernatural 
character  of  the  atonement  in  the  assumed  fact  that  it 
is  out  of  all  relation  with  ordinary  human  experience. 
The  contrast  between  Christianity  and  the  religions  of 
nature,  for  the  purpose  of  magnifying  the  former,  is 
sometimes  used  inconclusively.  All  this  has  been  over- 
worked, and  we  are  finding  a  better  method.  The 
contrast  between  God's  methods  and  man's  methods, 
between  what  God  does  and  what  we  should  be  likely  to 
do,  between  God's  estimates  and  human  estimates,  is  an 
expository  method  in  very  common  use  in  the  pulpit. 
We  find  it  in  Mr.  Spurgeon's  sermon  on  "The  Im- 
measurable Love."  These  are  the  contrasts:  The  gift 
was  God's  Son,  We  have  no  such  son  to  give.  No  man 
could  save  his  ow7t  life  by  giving  up  his  own  son^  but 
God  saves  us  by  giving  up  His  Son's  life.  He  gave  His 
Son  to  exile  and  hardship,  not  as  we  might  do  in  sending 
our  children  into  missionary  life  to  end  it  gloriously. 
When  God  gave  is  contrasted  with  our  giving.  He  gave 
from  eternity,  hence  is  constantly  giving.  Not  as  we 
give  —  suddenly  and  spasmodically.  The  value  of  this 
method  judiciously  and  skilfully  used  is  evident.  Its 
defects,  too,  are  obvious.  The  example  just  cited  from 
Spurgeon  is  in  general  unobjectionable  and  is  fairly 
effective,  although  not  very  weighty.  But  we  sometimes 
find  examples  that  are  objectionable  because  shallow 
and  specious.     For  instance,  his  argument  for  the  per- 


THE  PURITAN  PASTORAL  EVANGELIST        413 

severance  of  saints  in  the  sermon  above  cited.  "  Who- 
soever believeth  shall  not  perish ;  "  well,  the  penitent 
has  believed,  and  so  become  a  Christian.  He  "shall 
not  perish."  Therefore  he  will  not  go  back.  If  he 
should  cease  to  be  a  believer,  he  would  perish.  But  it 
is  said  that  he  shall  not  perish.  Since  this  is  so,  it  is 
clear  that  he  will  continue  to  believe.  Again,  the  be- 
liever is  a  member  of  Christ.  Christ  cannot  lose  one 
of  his  own  members.  You  cannot  drown  me  by  keep- 
ing my  foot  under  water.  You  must  get  my  head  under. 
Thus  Christ,  the  head,  must  be  destroyed  before  the 
believer  can  perish.  This  is  clever,  but  specious.  It  is 
not  argument,  but  ad  capta^idiiyn  appeal. 

But  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  he  often  handles 
this  method  with  much  mental  and  moral  sobriety,  and 
with  great  force  and  persuasiveness.  He  exalts  com- 
mon sense  with  great  success  in  the  affairs  of  religion, 
summoning  men  to  the  use  of  the  same  faculties  in 
religion  that  they  use  in  everyday  life.  He  not  only 
interests  but  he  instructs  men  by  presenting  what  is 
familiar  to  them,  by  illustrating  what  is  obscure  in  the 
use  of  what  is  common  and  well  known.  He  heightens 
the  significance  of  the  truth  by  showing  it,  not  only  in 
its  resemblances,  but  in  its  contrasts. 

6.  The  power  of  pathos  in  the  proclamation  of  the 
gospel  is  well  illustrated  by  Mr.  Spurgeon.  He  was 
not  the  master  of  pathos  perhaps  to  the  extent  that 
Dr.  Thomas  Guthrie  was.  After  hearing  him  preach, 
Guthrie  expressed  the  opinion  that  Spurgeon  was  defi- 
cient in  pathos.  But  this  must  be  regarded  as  an  in- 
adequate estimate.  He  did  not  affect  pathos  in  his 
preaching  to  the  extent  that  Guthrie  did.     He  espe- 


414       REPRESENTATIVE   MODERN   PREACHERS 

dally  did  not  lay  such  stress  upon  it,  and  it  may  be 
questioned  if  his  use  of  it  be  not  much  more  simple  and 
spontaneous.  He  drew  to  a  considerable  extent  from 
pathetic  texts,  and  even  in  his  handling  of  ordinary 
texts  he  can  readily  find  the  pathos  that  lies  in  their 
suggestiveness,  thus  disclosing  the  power  of  Biblical 
truths  to  evoke  pathetic  expression.  His  knowledge 
of  the  familiar  scenes  of  common  life,  of  what  lies  near- 
est the  average  human  heart,  his  famiUarity  with  scenes 
of  suffering  and  sorrow  and  sin,  which  cultivated  a  nat- 
urally tender  heart,  all  this,  in  connection  with  his  lack 
of  training  in  abstract  thought  and  facility  in  concrete 
expression,  favored  the  culture  of  pathos  and  inclined 
him  to  seek  for  and  to  make  use  of  the  material  of 
pathos,  which  is  so  abundant  in  the  Scriptures.  A  heart 
that  is  truly  human,  that  loves  what  touches  the  nature 
that  is  common  to  us  all  and  makes  us  kin,  that  knows 
the  sin  and  shares  the  sorrows  of  men,  that  has  felt  the 
love  of  Christ,  that  is  famihar  with  Biblical  literature 
and  with  the  poetry  of  the  church  and  with  the  lives  of 
God's  saints,  —  these  are  for  the  preacher  some  of  the 
sources  of  pathos.  He  who  would  be  an  effective 
evangeHstic  preacher  will  get  far  out  and  far  down 
into  real  life,  far  into  the  sins  and  sufferings  of  men, 
will  know  the  human  heart,  and  above  all  the  heart  of 
Christ  as  disclosed  in  His  life  of  condescension  and 
sacrifice. 

Some  of  Spurgeon's  early  sermons  are  especially  in- 
teresting, not  only  in  their  homiletic  ingenuity,  but  in 
their  pathos.  The  sermon  on  the  tomb  of  Jesus,  above 
referred  to,  from  the  text,  "  Come,  see  the  place  where 
the  Lord  lay,"  may  furnish  an  example.     The  resurrec- 


THE   PURITAN   PASTORAL  EVANGELIST        415 

tion  of  Christ  would  not  naturally  suggest  the  possi- 
bilities of  pathetic  treatment.  But  in  the  case  before 
us  it  appears  abundantly.  Pathos  mingled  with  a  cer- 
tain dramatic  forcefulness  abounds  here.  It  is  the 
textual  development  and  is  as  follows :  The  invitation : 
"  Come."  Reasons  why  we  should  heed  the  invitation 
and  come  to  Jesus'  tomb.  The  reasons  are  naturally 
suggested  by  the  scenes  themselves  which  the  tomb 
of  the  crucified  furnishes. 

The  attention  arrested :  "  See  the  place  where  the 
Lord  lay."  If  we  come,  what  shall  we  see  .-*  We  shall 
see  this  and  that,  all  sketched  with  true  feeling  and 
with  true  pathetic  suggestion. 

Emotion  excited  :  With  what  feelings  should  we  come 
and  what  should  we  learn  ?  All  this  is  a  very  simple 
and  natural  use  of  association  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
teresting our  feelings  and  moving  our  affections  and 
awakening  the  soul's  devotion  to  Christ.  There  are 
some  rather  crude  things  here  which  belong  to  the 
early  period  of  his  ministry.  But  the  sermon  is  a  sug- 
gestive and  helpful  one,  and  there  is  a  store  of  comfort 
in  it  for  the  heart  of  the  simple  believer. 

Of  Spurgeon's  great  value  to  the  cause  of  Christianity 
and  to  the  Christian  church  and  to  the  cause  of  general 
philanthropy  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  especially  of 
his  value  as  an  inspiration  and  in  many  respects  even  as 
a  model  for  any  man  who  would  know  how  to  preach 
evangelistically,  and  who  would  covet  the  wisdom  and 
the  grace  and  the  unspeakable  joy  and  priceless  reward 
of  him  who  wins  the  allegiance  of  men  to  Jesus  Christ. 
It  is  preaching  that  strongly  takes  hold  of  the  human 
heart,  conscience,  and  will.     If  one  will  subordinate  his 


4l6       REPRESENTATIVE  MODERN   PREACHERS 

critical  faculties,  and  permit  himself  to  be  borne  along 
on  the  current  of  the  preacher's  earnest  feeling  and  con- 
secrated purpose,  and  will  hold  himself  in  responsive 
attitude  toward  him,  he  will  be  strongly  interested  and 
impressed  by  it.  No  well-educated  and  well-trained 
man  is  likely  to  be  misled  by  Mr.  Spurgeon's  defects, 
and  it  is  precisely  such  a  man  that  will  derive  most 
profit  from  him,  because  it  will  be  a  judicious  appropria- 
tion of  his  merits.  Any  preacher  who  will  analyze  his 
product,  and  get  at  its  sources  of  power,  who  will  let  him- 
self be  instructed  and  quickened  by  it,  who  will  take  the 
best  of  it,  in  the  inspiration  and  in  the  method  of  it,  and 
pass  it  over  into  his  own  line  of  work,  using  it  in  such 
way  as  is  agreeable  with  his  own  personal  peculiarities, 
will  not  fail  to  become  a  successful  evangelistic  preacher, 
a  result  greatly  to  be  desired  in  the  interest  of  an  effec- 
tive Christian  pulpit  in  our  day.  Modern  critical  habits 
are  not  likely  to  permit  any  educated  man  to  indulge  in 
an  extravagant  homiletic  use  of  Scripture.  And  for  any 
man  who  is  in  danger  of  a  too  formal  and  critical  and 
unsuggestive  pulpit  use  of  Scripture,  Mr.  Spurgeon  may 
be  very  helpful. 


INDEX 


Allen,  Prof.  A.  V.  G.,  "  Life  and  Let- 
ters of  Phillips  Brooks,"  195;  cited, 
207,  221. 

Anselm,  Archbishop,  Bushnell  on 
"Cur  Deus  Homo,"  151. 

Apologia,  Newman's,  cited,  253,  262, 
263,  266,  267,  274,  275,  281,  282,  286, 
298. 

Arbirlot,  parish  of,  Guthrie's  first  pas- 
torate, 356,  357. 

Aristotle,  Robertson  student  of,  63. 

Aristotle's  Ethics,  Schleiermacher  stu- 
dent of,  II. 

Arnold,  Dr.  Thomas,  61, 259, 260 ;  broad 
churchman,  261 ;  Newman's  oppo- 
sition to,  274;  exacting  classical 
standard,  313,  320. 

Augustine,  St.,  150,  304;  polemical 
preaching  of,  327. 

Barby,  Moravian  school  at,  5,  8. 

Barrow,  Dr.  Isaac,  Beecher  a  student 
of,  112,  126;  an  apologetic  preacher, 
322. 

Beecher,  Rev.  Henry  Ward,  compared 
with  Schleiermacher,  42,  129;  with 
Robertson,  98,  106;  with  Spurgeon, 
104,  399;  with  Luther,  100;  with 
Newman,  140;  with  Bushnell,  105, 
106,  III,  115,  130;  with  Brooks,  112, 
130 ;  a  typical  American,  99, 100, 106 ; 
representative  American  preacher, 
ICG,  loi ;  individualistic  quality  in 
preaching,  101-115;  address  before 
New  York  and  Brooklyn  Association, 
109,  no;  student  of  English  preach- 
ers, 112, 126;  intellectual  qualities  of 
productiveness,  thoroughness,  range, 
and  catholicity,  115-136;  compared 
with  other  American  orators,  119; 


theological  beliefs,  134-135;  gifts  of 
expression,  "the  Shakespeare  of  the 
pulpit,"  136-142. 

Berlin,  Schleiermacher's  connection 
with,  12,  13,  14,  15,  22,  39. 

Berlin  University,  Hegel  colleague  of 
Schleiermacher  at,  2;  when  and  by 
whom  established,  15. 

Blair,  Rev.  Hugh,  studied  and  trans- 
lated by  Schleiermacher,  11. 

Book  of  Genesis,  Robertson's  lectures 
on,  77. 

Books  of  Samuel,  Robertson's  lectures 
on,  77. 

Brechin,  birthplace  of  Guthrie,  351, 
352. 

Brighton  ministry,  Robertson's,  60,  70, 
76,  88. 

Brighton,  working-men  of,  53,  76,  84. 

British  Critic,  Newman's  editorship  of, 
316 ;  Mozley's  contribution  to,  316. 

Brooks,  Bishop  Phillips,  compared 
with  Beecher,  196,  209;  with  Bush- 
nell, 196,  199,  204,  209,  226,  228,  232, 
239,  245;  with  Emerson,  216;  with 
Guthrie,  202,  243;  with  Liddon,  209; 
with  Lincoln,  207;  with  Mozley, 
209,  239;  with  Newman,  197,  205, 
209,  246;  with  Robertson,  197,  204, 
209,  216,  222,  225,  228,  232,  238, 
239;  with  Schleiermacher,  203,  204, 
216;  sermons  cited,  243,  244,  246, 
247;  Puritan  ancestry  and  ecclesi- 
astical influences,  195-196;  broad 
churchman,  197-198 ;  college  life, 
interest  in  literature  and  history,  198- 
-199;  interest  in  the  lives  of  great 
men,  Mohammed,  Luther,  Crom- 
well, and  Carlyle,  Harvard  humani- 
ties, choice  of  ministry,  200 ;  Divinity 


417 


4i8 


INDEX 


School,  study  of  literature,  classical 
dramatists,  and  church  Fathers,  201, 
202;  Philadelphia  ministry  and  the 
Civil  War,  202,  203;  Boston  minis- 
try, 203,  204;  breadth  of  sympathy 
and  catholicity,  205;  symmetrical 
and  progressive  development  of  char- 
acter, 206-208 ;  physical  equipment, 
209;  intellectual  characteristics,  209- 
212;  artistic,  ethical,  and  spiritual 
qualities,  212-217;  relation  of  mes- 
sage to  theology,  217-219;  atti- 
tude toward  the  theology  of  the 
church,  220-222;  theological  aspect 
of  message,  222-236;  Yale  Lectures 
on  Preaching,  conception  of  the  func- 
tion of  the  sermon,  236,  237 ;  Chris- 
tological  centre  of  preaching,  237, 
238;  didactic  and  non-evangelistic 
quality,  238,  239 ;  analytic  skill,  239, 
240;  analogical  method,  240,  241, 
242;  inferential  thought,  242,  243, 
244 ;  appeal  to  experience,  244,  245 ; 
qualities  of  style,  245-248;  uncon- 
ventional character  of  preaching, 
248-251. 
Bushnell,  Dr.  Horace,  influence  of 
Coleridge  on,  64,  166,  167;  pre- 
eminence of  preaching  gifts,  143; 
intellectual  tendencies,  143-146;  gift 
for  theology,  146-150;  defective  stu- 
dent habits,  150-152;  Puritan  real- 
ism, 152-153;  impressiveness  as  a 
preacher,  153-154 ;  physical  person- 
ality, 155-159;  inherited  intellectual 
independence,  158-161 ;  insight  and 
logic,  161-163 ;  didactic  quality,  163- 
165;  artistic  gifts,  165-166;  literary 
style,  167-171;  ethical  forcefulness, 
171-174 ;  vital  quality  of  preaching, 
174-176;  development  of  religious 
life,  176-182;  Christian  quality  of 
preaching,  182-184 ;  non-scientific 
and  non-technical  quality  of  the- 
ology, 184-185;  changed  theory  of 
religious  knowledge,  186-188 ;  modi- 
fied Christology,  188 ;  "  nature  and  the 
supernatural,"  189;  "vicarious  sacri- 
fice," 189 ;  modified  views  of  revela- 


tion, 191;  Christocentric  theology, 
191-192 ;  combination  of  the  didac- 
tic and  ethical  interest,  193-194; 
cited,  226;  Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke 
on,  149;  President  Noah  Porter  on, 
183;  compared  with  Dr.  Nathaniel 
W.Taylor,  147;  Prof.  Shedd,  151; 
Robertson,  152,  153,  157,  165,  176, 
177,  178;  Beecher,  154,  156,  163, 169, 
174;  Brooks,  154,  163;  Paley,  167; 
Paul,  Augustine,  and  Luther,  183; 
pioneer  Ritschlian,  187;  individual 
sermons  of,  191,  193. 

Butler,  Bishop  Joseph,  on  the  doctrine 
of  probability,  281,  283. 

Byron,  Lord,  Robertson's  estimate  of, 
67 ;  stands  between  two  periods,  257. 

Calvinism,  Beecher's  attitude  toward, 
135,  cf.  117 ;  Bushnell's  antipathy  to, 
159 ;  influence  on  Newman,  286 ;  of 
Guthrie,  354,  365,  373,  374 ;  of  Chal- 
mers, 354;  of  Spurgeon,  385,389, 
390,  403,  404,  409. 

Campbell,  Dr.  McLeod,  373. 

Cappadocians,  the,  304. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  53,  64,  65,  76,  257. 

Chalmers,  Dr.  Thomas ;  school  of,  350 ; 
church  extension  movement,  353, 359, 
360;  administrative  ability  of,  357; 
leader  of  Scottish  Evangelicals,  358, 
361 ;  compared  with  Spurgeon,  393. 

Channing,  Dr.  William  E.,  influence  of 
on  Robertson,  87. 

Cheltenham,  Robertson's  ministry  at, 
54,  60,  70. 

Christian  socialists,  Robertson's  rela- 
tion to  the,  53. 

Christlieb,  Prof.  Immanuel,  on  Beech- 
er, 101-104,  "5- 

Christology,  Beecher's,  103,  107,  134; 
Bushnell's,  i88. 

Chrysostom,  St.,  304,  382. 

Cockburn,  Lord  Henry,  leader  of  Scot- 
tish bar,  361 ;  on  Guthrie,  363. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  61,  64,  187, 
257.  263. 

Congregational  churches  of  Connecti- 
cut, Bushnell's  relation  to,  172. 


INDEX 


419 


Congregational  ministers  of  London, 

Beecher's  address  before,  117. 
Corinthian  letters,  Robertson  on,  71, 
Covenanters,  Guthrie's  ancestors,  350, 

Demosthenes,  Bushnell  student  of, 
156. 

De  Wette,  Prof.  Wilhelm,  on  Schleier- 
macher's  preaching,  32. 

Discourses  on  religion,  Schleiermach- 
er's,  Schelling  on,  2;  when  written, 
14;  character  of,  18,  21,  43;  trans- 
lated, 64. 

Eberhard,  Prof.  Johann  A.,  Schleier- 
macher's  teacher  in  philosophy  at 
Halle,  10. 

Edinburgh,  Robertson  at,  55 ;  Guthrie 
pastor  at  "  Old  Gray  Friars  "  church 
in,  360,  361 ;  pastor  of  St.  John's 
church  in,  361 ;  contemporaries  of 
Guthrie  at,  361. 

Edwards,  Dr.  Jonathan,  Robertson  a 
student  of,  82 ;  Beecher  a  student  of 
the  preaching  of,  126. 

Erskine,  Mr.  Thomas,  373. 

Evangelicals,  American,  influence  on 
Brooks,  197. 

Evangelicals,  English,  influence  on 
Robertson,  57,  59,  85 ;  influence  on 
Newman,  59;  character  of  the  Ox- 
ford, 255 ;  Whately's  estimate  of,  256. 

Evangelicals,  Scottish,  354, 355, 358, 371. 

Free  churches,  English,  compared 
with  Anglican  churches,  397,  398. 

Free  church  movement,  Scottish,  367. 

French  Revolution,  a  phase  of  political 
illuminism,  8  ;  Schleiermacher's  in- 
terest in,  13. 

Froude,  Hurrell,  relation  to  Newman, 
276,  286. 

Gladstone,  Hon.  William  E.,  on  New- 
man, 255,  289,  308  ;  "Vatican  and 
Civil  Allegiance,"  326 ;  on  Spurgeon, 
392. 

Goethe,  poet,  2,  6,  8, 12,  257. 

"  Grammar  of  Assent,"  Newman's,  con- 


tains his  theory  of  religious  knowl- 
edge, 282. 
Guthrie,  Dr.  Thomas,  representative  of 
the  school  of  Chalmers  on  the  prac- 
tical rather  than  the  intellectual  side, 
350  ;  ancestry  and  education,  350- 
354  ;  theological  studies,  354-355 ; 
scientific  studies,  355-356;  business 
life,  waiting  for  a  parish,  357;  first 
parish,  356,  357,  358;  "anti-patron- 
age" and  "voluntary"  controversy, 
358.  359;  Chalmers's  "church  ex- 
tension" movement,  359,  360;  trans- 
fer to  Edinburgh,  pastorate  at  "Old 
Gray  Friars"  and  St.  John's,  360, 
361 ;  stimulating  influences  of  Edin- 
burgh life,  361 ;  withdrawal  from  the 
pastorate  and  editorship  of  Sunday 
Magazine,  362;  physical  and  intel- 
lectual qualities,  363-365  ;  ethical 
and  rhetorical  qualities,  365,  366; 
preaching  as  related  to  pastoral  and 
philanthropic  work,  367-371;  com- 
pared with  Spurgeon,  369;  "The 
City,  its  Sins  and  Sorrows,"  illustra- 
tion of  pastoral  life,  369 ;  preaching 
as  to  its  material  and  formal  aspects, 
371-377;  Biblical  preaching  illus- 
trated by  "The  Gospel  in  Ezekiel," 
"Christ  and  the  Inheritance  of  the 
Saints,"  and  "Parables,"  372;  Cal- 
vinistic  theology,  373,  374;  homiletic 
freedom,  375-377 ;  sermon  cited,  376 ; 
dramatic  power,  377-382;  French- 
man's opinion  of,  377;  compared 
with  Chrysostom  and  Beecher,  382. 

Hall,  Dr.  Robert,  44;  on  the  atone- 
ment, 412. 

Halle  University,  Schleiermacher's  con- 
nection with,  9,  10,  15,  22,  24. 

Hamilton,   Sir  William,   on   Guthrie, 

243.  381. 

Hampden,  Dr.  R.  D.,  Mozley's  pred- 
ecessor at  Oxford,  317, 

Hare  brothers,  broad  churchmen,  61. 

Hegel,  Prof.  G.  W.  F.,  contemporary 
and  colleague  of  Schleiermacher,  2 ; 
conception  of  religion,  17. 


420 


INDEX 


Herder,  Superintendent  Johann  G,, 
contemporary  of  Schleiermacher,  2. 

Humboldt,  Baron  von,  on  Schleier- 
macher's  preaching,  37. 

Hutton,  editor,  on  Newman,  262, 
290. 

Illumination,  meaning  of,  7,  8;  influ- 
ence on  Schleiermacher,  11,  12,  13. 

Jacobi,  Friedrich  H.,  Schleiermacher 
student  of,  14;  letter  of  Schleier- 
macher to,  28. 

Jeffrey,  Lord,  leader  in  literature,  361 ; 
parishioner  of  Guthrie,  381. 

Kant,  Prof.  Immanuel,  promoter  of  the 
Illumination,  7,  8 ;  Schleiermacher  a 
student  of,  10, 11, 14;  Schlegel  and, 
263. 

Kantian  philosophy,  Schleiermacher's 
estimate  of  and  relation  to,  10, 16, 18, 
22;  philosophical  works  translated, 
64. 

Keble,  Rev.  John,  high  churchman, 
58 ;  "  Christian  Year,"  258 ;  symbolic 
significance  of  the  material  world, 
258;  on  probability,  283;  friend  of 
Mozley,  314. 

Kingsley,  Rev.  Charles,  61,  76;  on 
Newman,  254,  261. 

Knapp,  Prof.  Georg  C,  10. 

Law's  "  Serious  Call,"  influence  on 
Newman,  286. 

Landsberg,  Schleiermacher's  pastorate 
at,  12. 

Leibnitz,  Gottfried  W.,  2. 

Lessing,  Gotthold  E.,  2. 

Liberalism,  English,  Newman's  esti- 
mate of,  259,  261,  274. 

"  Library  of  the  Fathers,"  product  of 
the  Anglican  movement,  260. 

Liddon,  Canon  H.  P.,  compared  with 
Brooks,  209;  dogmatic  method  of, 
322,  323. 

Lincoln,  President  Abraham,  Beecher 
as  estimated  by,  119;  Brooks's  esti- 
mate of,  207. 


London    Times,  estimate   of   Guthrie, 

370,  381. 
Lotze,  Prof.  Herman  Rudolph,  Brooks's 

estimate  of,  199. 
Liicke,    Prof.    Gottfried    C.    F.,    on 

Schleiermacher,  16,  27. 
Luther,    Dr.   Martin,  contrasted  with 

Newman,!   284;     Mozley    on,    316; 

polemical  preaching,  327. 

Magdalen  College,  Mozley  fellow  at, 

315- 

McLeod,  Dr.  Norman,  character  of, 
353;  administrative  ability,  357; 
compared  with  Guthrie,  365 ;  pathos 
of,  371- 

Mariolatry,  Newman's,  299,  300. 

Maurice,  Prof.  John  Frederick  D., 
broad  churchman,  61, 261 ;  Christian 
socialist,  76. 

Metaphysics,  Bushnell  on,  145,  279. 

Miller,  Hugh,  friendship  of  Guthrie 
with,  355,  381. 

Milman,  Dr.  Henry  H.,  critical  and 
historic  method  of,  259;  Latin 
Christianity,  260. 

Milton,  John,  Robertson  on,  53. 

Moderatism,  Scottish,  influence  on 
Scottish  churches,  353;  Guthrie's 
antagonism  to,  355;  patronage 
party,  358. 

Monologues,  Schleiermacher's,  char- 
acter of,  14,  46 ;  cited,  47. 

Moravianism,  Schleiermacher's  esti- 
mate of,  6. 

Moravian  schools,  Schleiermacher's 
connection  with,  4,  5,  6. 

Mozley,  Rev.  T.  T.,  his  "  Oxford  Remi- 
niscences" cited,  253,  254,  255,  256, 
265,  273 ;  on  Newman's  familiarity 
with  sceptical  literature,  280;  on 
Newman's  ignorance  of  men,  300; 
on  J.  B.  Mozley,  310. 

Mozley,  Canon  James  B.,  compared 
with  Robertson,  80,  316,  326;  with 
Newman,  310,  311;  Newman's  in- 
fluence on,  311,  312;  London  Spec- 
tator on,  310,  331 ;  characteristics  of, 
310-313;    compared    with    Liddon, 


INDEX 


421 


312;  Arnold  and,  313;  student  life 
at  Oxford,  314-316;  edits  Christian 
Remembrancer,  316 ;  essays,  316, 317 ; 
Old  Shoreham  parish,  316;  paro- 
chial sermons,  317;  professor  of 
divinity  and  canon  of  Christ  church 
at  Oxford,  317;  lectures,  317;  com- 
pared with  Bishop  Butler,  318,  319; 
characteristics  as  apologetic  preach- 
er, 321-331 ;  compared  with  other 
English  apologetic  preachers,  322- 
323,  327 ;  apologetic  methods  of  uni- 
versity sermons,  324,  325;  charac- 
teristics as  ethical  preacher,  331- 
344;  sermons  cited,  324-326,  333, 
334 ;  analysis  of"  Reversal  of  Human 
Judgment,"  334-336;  Dr.  William 
M.  Taylor  on  "  Reversal  of  Human 
Judgment,"  334;  view  of  life,  336- 
344;  Froebel  compared  with,  341; 
artistic  aspects  of  preaching,  344- 
349. 

"  Nature  and  the  Supernatural,"  Bush- 
nell,  189. 

Neander,  Prof.  Johann  A.  W.,  estimate 
of  Schleiermacher,  2. 

Newman,  Francis,  estimate  of  John 
Henry,  254,  261,  265,  276,  278,  299. 

Nevmian,  Cardinal  John  Henry,  rela- 
tion to  the  Anglican  movement,  252 ; 
religious,  literary,  historical,  and  phil- 
osophical basis  of  the  Anglican  move- 
ment, 253-264;  influence  of  Scott 
and  Romaine  on,  255;  influences 
that  led  to  Roman  church,  265-287; 
compared  with  Brooks,  265,  266; 
sermons  compared  with  those  of 
Robertson,  Bushnell,  and  Brooks, 
290;  sermons  cited,  270,  271,  272; 
defence  of  hereditary  privilege,  273 ; 
scepticism  of,  281-283;  "Sermons 
on  Subjects  of  the  Day,"  287,  289; 
"  Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons,"  289 ; 
"Occasional  Sermons,"  289;  "Dis- 
courses to  Mixed  Congregations," 
289;  unworldliness  and  asceticism, 
291-295 ;  "  Parting  of  Friends  "  cited, 
291;    exaltation    of   faith,  295-300; 


sermons  cited,  296,  298 ;  insight  into 
the  human  soul,  300,  301 ;  doctrinal 
subject-matter  of  his  preaching,  301, 
302, 303 ;  scriptural  and  ecclesiastical 
citations,  303  ;  rhetorical  forcefulness 
of  his  positive  message,  304 ;  direct- 
ness, fulness,  freedom,  and  cumula- 
tive energy  of  his  method,  304,  305 ; 
literary  style,  306, 307 ;  sermons  cited, 
306,  307;  pulpit  manner,  307,  308; 
Gladstone's  estimate  of  his  preach- 
ing, 308. 

New  Testament,  Schleiermacher's  atti- 
tude toward,  30. 

Novalis,  2,  257. 

Old  Testament,  Schleiermacher's  atti- 
tude toward,  31 ;  Robertson's  preach- 
ing from,  70. 

Oriel  School,  Oxford,  61,  256,  259. 

Oxford  movement,  252,  256,  257,  358, 
259,  264,  273,  300,  316. 

Oxford  University,  Robertson  at,  59, 63 ; 
Newman  at,  255, 280 ;  Mozley  at,  314, 
317. 318. 

Park,  Prof.  Edwards  A.,  on  Spurgeon, 

392- 

"  Pastor's  College,"  Spurgeon's,  389. 

Pfleiderer,  Prof.  Otto,  on  Schleier- 
macher, 21,  27. 

Philosophy,  Bushnell's  estimate  of,  145. 

Plato,  Robertson  a  student  of,  63. 

Plato's  Works,  translated  by  Schlei- 
ermacher, II,  39. 

Porter,  President  Noah,  on  Bushnell, 
183. 

Puritan,  ancestry  of  Beecher,  99; 
ancestry  of  Bushnell,  152;  ancestry 
of  Brooks,  195,  196;  qualities  of 
Bushnell,  153,  165;  qualities  of 
Brooks,  210. 

Pusey,  Dr.  Edward  B.,  relation  to  Ox- 
ford Movement,  254, 314 ;  theological 
teacher  with  Newman,  315. 

Rationalism,  Schleiermacher's  relation 

to,  7. 
"  Reversal     of    Human    Judgment," 


422 


INDEX 


Mozley's  sermon   on  the,  333,  334, 

343- 

Richter,  Jean  Paul  F.,  2,  257. 

Ritschlianism,  anticipated  by  Bushnell, 
187. 

Robertson,  Rev.  Frederick  W.,  on  the 
Sacraments,  28 ;  compared  with 
Schleiermacher,  49 ;  with  Carlyle, 
S3.  94;  with  Milton,  53;  with  New- 
man, 59;  with  Augustine,  72;  with 
Brooks,  75, 77;  with  Mozley,  80 ;  with 
Bushnell,  86;  English  qualities,  50- 
54;  early  home  life,  54-56;  Evan- 
gelical influences,  57 ;  influences 
from  the  Anglican  church,  57-62; 
change  in  philosophic  basis,  63 ;  in- 
fluence of  Coleridge,  64,  65 ;  literary 
influences,  66-69;  Biblical  quality 
of  preaching,  69-79 ;  edifying  qual- 
ity, 79-84;  religious  experiences  as 
related  to  preaching,  84-87;  quali- 
ties of  personality  as  related  to 
preaching,  87-92 ;  sermons  cited,  91 ; 
rhetorical  qualities,  92-97;  too  sub- 
jective life,  97. 

Romanticism,  German,  characteristics 
of,  12,  18 ;  Schleiermacher's  relation 
to,  13,  14,  17,  257. 

Rothe,  Prof.  Richard,  on  Augustine,  72. 

Ruskin,  John,  on  Spurgeon,  392. 

St.  Mary's  Church,  Oxford,  Newman 
at,  59,  268,  271 ;  resigns,  287,  291. 

Saurin,  Rev.  James,  homiletic  method 
of,  127. 

Schelling,  Prof.  Friedrich  W.  J.,  Schlei- 
ermacher contemporary  of,  2;  stu- 
dent of,  14. 

Schiller,  poet,  contemporary  of  Schlei- 
ermacher, 2;  Schleiermacher's  esti- 
mate of,  6. 

Schlegel,  Friedrich  von,  2,  12,  67,  263. 

Schleiermacher,  Prof.  Friedrich  D.  E., 
ancestry  and  home,  4;  Moravian 
nurture,  4-7 ;  at  Halle  University,  9- 
II ;  licensure  and  early  ministry,  ii- 
12;  influence  of  Romanticism  on, 
12-14 ;  teacher  and  preacher  at  Halle 
University,    15 ;     life    in    Berlin    as 


teacher,  preacher,  church  leader,  and 
patriot,  15-16;  conception  of  reli- 
gion and  theology,  16-22 ;  theory  of 
preaching,  24-28;  subject-matter  of 
preaching,  28-33;  aim  in  preach- 
ing, 33-36;  tone  of  preaching,  36- 
39 ;  formal  aspects  of  preaching,  39- 
44 ;  type  of  preaching,  44-48 ;  com- 
pared with  Beecher,  Bushnell,  Brooks, 
and  Robertson,  42,  45. 

Schlobitten,  Schleiermacher's  tutor- 
ship at,  II,  40. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  influence  on  Robert- 
son, 68;  influence  on  Guthrie,  353. 

Semler,  Prof.  Johann  S.,  10. 

Shelley,  poet,  Robertson  on,  51,  67. 

Sorbonne,  the,  Guthrie  at,  356. 

South,  Dr.  Robert,  126,  322, 327. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  influence  on  Beecher, 
103. 

Spinoza,  Baruch  de,  influence  on 
Schleiermacher,  14,  17,  28. 

Spurgeon,  Rev.  Charles  H.,  product  of 
English  dissent,  383 ;  early  ministerial 
success,  384;  Dutch-Quaker  ances- 
try and  Puritan  culture,  384-387; 
resemblance  to  Macaulay,  384 ;  early 
familiarity  with  Bunyan,  Baxter,  and 
English  Bible,  386 ;  transfer  to  Bap- 
tist church,  387;  independence  of 
character,  387 ;  usher  at  Newmarket, 
387 ;  refuses  college  education,  387- 
388;  influence  of  Puritan  writers, 
389.  391 ;  compared  with  Beecher, 
389;  first  pastorate,  390;  called  to 
London,  390;  character  of  early 
preaching,  390-393;  preaching  at 
Exeter  Hall,  392 ;  building  of  taber- 
nacle, 392 ;  reception  at  Oxford,  393 ; 
increase  in  wisdom  and  power,  394 ; 
evangelistic  preacher,  395-396 ;  illus- 
trates power  of  naturalness,  396-401 ; 
compared  with  Moody,  400 ;  person- 
ality, 399-400;  consciousness  of  vo- 
cation, 401-403 ;  sermons  cited,  402 ; 
positivism  and  conservatism,  403- 
407 ;  bibliology,  403 ;  "  Down-Grade 
Movement,"  404;  withdraws  from 
Baptist    Union,    404;     doctrine    of 


INDEX 


423 


prayer,  405 ;  compared  with  Rowland 
Hill,  406;  working  knowledge  of  the 
Bible,  407-410 ;  sermons  cited,  408 ; 
characteristics  of  style,  410;  Anglo- 
Saxon  quality  in  style,  410;  "ad 
hominem  method,"  411-413;  ser- 
mons cited,  412-413;  power  of  pa- 
thos, 413-415;  sermons  cited,  414- 
415 ;  value  as  evangelistic  preacher, 
415-416. 

Stanley,  Dean  Arthur  P.,  61. 

Stolpe,  Schleiermacher's  ministry  at, 
12,  14. 

Tauler,  the  mystic,  Schleiermacher 
compared  with,  46. 

Taylor,  Dr.  Nathaniel  W.,  Bushnell's 
relation  to,  147. 

Tennyson,  poet,  influence  on  Robert- 
son, 66,  88. 

Thirlwall,  Bishop  Connop,  259,  260. 

Tillotson,  Archbishop  John,  322. 

Tractarians,  61,  85. 

"  Tracts  for  the  Times,"  253,  314. 


Trinity  Church,  Berlin,  Schleiermacher 
pastor  of,  16 ;  Boston,  Brooks  pastor 
of,  213. 

Van  Dyke,  Dr.  Henry,  on  Bushnell, 

149. 
"  Vicarious  Sacrifice,"  Bushnell's,  189. 

War  of  the  Rebellion,  Beecher's  ac- 
tivity in  the,  99,  100, 114,  124,  125. 

Winchester,  Robertson's  ministry  at, 
60,  70. 

Whately,  Archbishop  Richard,  leader 
of  Oriel  school,  61;  influence  on 
Newman,  259,  273. 

Wordsworth,  poet,  Robertson  on,  51; 
influence  on  Robertson,  66,  67,  88 ; 
and  modern  literature,  257;  influ- 
ence on  Newman,  263. 

Yale    College,   Bushnell's   connection 

with,  177-178. 
Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,  Brooks, 

236. 


C. 


The  Quest  of  Happiness 

A   STUDY  OF  VICTORY  OVER   LIFE'S  TROUBLES 

By  NEWELL   DWIGHT   HILLIS 

Pastor  of  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn;  Author  of  "The  Influence 
of  Christ  in  Modern  Life,"  etc. 

Cloth,  with  colored  page  borders.    $1.50  net 

"  *  The  Quest  of  Happiness '  is  Dr.  Hillis's  very  best  book.  It  is  strong, 
vivid,  clear,  and  has  a  certain  indefinable  human  quality  which  will  be 
sure  to  give  it  a  large  circulation  and  make  it  a  source  of  great  helpfulness. 
I  especially  enjoyed  the  '  Forewords.'  They  would  make  an  attractive 
volume  in  themselves."  —  Amory  H.  Bradford,  Pastor  First  Congrega- 
tional Church,  Montclair,  N.J. 

"  Like  everything  from  Dr.  Hillis,  'The  Quest  of  Happiness  '  is  original 
in  conception  and  eloquent  in  expression.  It  is  a  book  sure  of  a  wide  and 
helpful  influence.  I  can  scarcely  think  of  any  better  service  that  could  be 
rendered  the  crowds  out  in  search  of  happiness  than  to  acquaint  them  with 
this  guide-book  to  the  Land  they  are  looking  for."  —  Charles  Wood, 
Second  Presbyterian  Churchy  Philadelphia. 


The  Influence  of  Christ  in  Modern  Life 

BEING  A  STUDY  OF  THE  NEW  PROBLEMS  OF  THE  CHURCH 
IN  AMERICAN   SOCIEIT 

By  NEWELL   DWIGHT   HILLIS 

Author  of  "The  Quest  of  Happiness,"  etc. 

Cloth      i2nio      $1.50 

"  Written  especially  for  the  educated  young  men  of  the  country,  and 
for  the  multitudes  who  are  busied  with  the  ten  thousand  duties  of  daily 
life,  who  are  asking  what  is  left  of  the  evangel  of  Christ  now  that  the 
critical  era  is  past.  Every  eloquent  chapter  is  a  spiritual  uplift  and  a 
strengthener  of  faith  in  the  unique  claims  and  character  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ."  —  Epworth  Herald. 

"The  new  theology  finds  forceful  utterance  here.  In  Dr.  Hillis's  dis- 
course one  is  often  reminded  of  his  predecessor  in  the  Central  Church  at 
Chicago,  the  lamented  David  Swing.  There  is  the  same  sparkle  of  imagi- 
nation and  wealth  of  illustration,  the  same  sympathetic  feeling  and  human 
warmth,  the  same  light  but  firm  touch,  the  same  persuasiveness."  —  The 
Outlook. 

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Vocal  and  Literary  Interpretation 
of  the  Bible 

By  S.  S.  CURRY,  Ph.D. 

Acting  Davis  Professor  of  Elocution  of  Newton 
Theological  Institution 

With  an  Introduction  by  FRANCIS  G.  PEABODY,  D.D.,  Dean  of  the 
Divinity  School,  Harvard  University 

Professor  Curry's  book  on  "  The  Vocal  Interpretation  of  the  Bible  " 
goes  into  a  good  many  themes  which  are  not  necessarily  associated  with 
the  title.  Much  of  the  author's  life  has  been  devoted  to  teaching  elocu- 
tion and  expression,  and  primarily  his  book  is  designed  to  show  young 
men  about  to  enter  the  ministry,  lay  readers,  and  others  who  have  occa- 
sion to  read  the  Bible  aloud,  how  to  bring  out  the  full  meaning  and  the 
largest  possible  part  of  the  beauty  of  the  sacred  book.  But  it  enters,  also, 
into  many  of  the  subjects  dealt  with  in  Bible  classes,  and  interprets  vari- 
ous phases  and  portions  of  the  Bible  in  a  way  which  will  prove  attractive, 
significant,  and  remunerative.  There  is  more  in  this  book  than  is  con- 
veyed by  the  title.  On  the  one  hand,  it  will  interest  young  people;  while, 
on  the  other,  clergymen  will  find  in  it  suggestive  comments  on  the  reading 
of  the  Bible  in  church.  The  book  contains  a  helpful  introduction  by 
Professor  Francis  Greenwood  Peabody,  of  Harvard,  author  of  "Jesus 
Christ  and  the  Social  Question." 


Happiness 

ESSAYS   ON   THE   MEANING   OF   LIFE 

By    CARL     HILTY 

University  of  Bern 

Translated  by  FRANCIS  G.   PEABODY,  D.D.,  Dean  of  the 
Divinity  School,  Harvard  University 

Cloth      i2nio      $1.25  net 

"The  author  makes  his  appeal,  not  to  discussion,  but  to  life;  .  .  .  that 
which  draws  readers  to  the  Bern  professor  is  his  capacity  to  maintain  in 
the  midst  of  important  duties  of  public  service  and  scientific  activity  an 
unusual  detachment  of  desire  and  an  interior  quietness  of  mind." 

—  New  York  Times, 

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The  Religion  of  an  Educated  Man 

THREE  LECTURES 

By  FRANCIS   GREENWOOD  PEABODY 

Dean  of  the  Divinity  School,  Harvard  University 

Cloth      i2mo      $1.00  net 

"  They  are  pregnant  with  suggestion  and  reveal  a  depth  of  broad 
Christian  scholarship  together  with  a  keen  insight  into  the  demands 
of  the  modern  world  upon  the  scholar." 

—  New  York  Commercial  Advertiser. 

"  His  logic  is  sound,  and  the  sane,  temperate  tone  of  his  essays 
invites  conviction."  —  Milwaukee  Sentinel. 


Jesus  Clirist  and  the  Social  Question 

An  Examination  of  the  Teaching  of  Jesus  in  its  Relation 
TO  Some  Problems  of  Modern  Social  Life 

By  FRANCIS   GREENWOOD  PEABODY 

Author  of  "The  Religion  of  an  Educated  Man,"  etc. 

Cloth      i2nio     $1.50 

"  In  this  *  Examination  of  the  Teaching  of  Jesus  in  its  Relation 
to  Some  of  the  Problems  of  Modern  Social  Life '  Professor  Peabody 
begins  with  a  careful  discussion  of  the  comprehensiveness  of  this 
teaching  as  at  once  perfectly  apt  and  adequate  to  every  possible 
condition  and  need.  He  then  considers  the  social  principles  of 
this  teaching ;  its  relation  to  the  family,  to  the  rich,  to  the  care  of 
the  poor,  to  the  industrial  order.  The  concluding  chapter  is  espe- 
cially good,  setting  forth  '  the  Correlation  of  the  Social  Questions.' 
It  is  shown  how  this  fact  should  affect  those  who  are  actually  inter- 
ested in  particular  reforms."  —  Ti?nes-Herald,  Chicago. 

"It  is  vital,  searching,  comprehensive.  The  Christian  reader 
will  find  it  an  illumination ;  the  non-Christian  a  revelation." 

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